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When saving posts, the first sentence is removed if it matches a regular expression. See this answer. The purpose is to automatically remove salutations from posts.

The word “hay” is a very uncommon English salutation, but it is a quite important word in Spanish, meaning “There is”. It is also a common word in English. It is included in the above-mentioned regular expression.

Should it be removed from it, and therefore allow questions and answers to start with “hay”?

Advantages: you could start a question in the Spanish Stack Exchange with “Hay una palabra que...” (“There is a word that...”), or an answer with “Hay dos respuestas para tu pregunta” (“Your question has two answers”). You could start a question on Puzzles SE with the words “Hay weighs 8 pounds per cubic foot”. Etcetera. Basically, you can start a post with a valid sentence starting with “hay”, of which there are many in Spanish.

Disadvantages: Somebody could start a question with the very uncommon salutation “hay!” and that salutation will have to be deleted.

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  • 1
    This feels like it may be useful on Spanish.SE, but nowhere else. If it is possible to do it for just that one site I'd be in favour, but I don't want to lose the auto deletion of it from all other sites.
    – Rory Alsop
    Commented Dec 23, 2017 at 17:57
  • 10
    First hair, and now hay?
    – Mark
    Commented Dec 23, 2017 at 19:50
  • 4
    On the other hand, who would start their question with hay?
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Dec 25, 2017 at 9:01
  • @JourneymanGeek I was wondering the same thing. Maybe some people might start with "Hey there!", but I have never seen "Hay" used.
    – hat
    Commented Dec 25, 2017 at 17:33
  • @Whosaysbigcatsdon'twearhats maybe it's because it's been removed by the filter?
    – John Dvorak
    Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 18:56
  • 1
    Hay bale is a block in Minecraft.
    – iBug says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 14:46

1 Answer 1

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I think there's no need at all to remove "hay" from posts, as people use more "hey" than "hay", see this (22.7k vs. 300, emphasis on your very uncommon).

It's important to note that "hay" is a very common leading word in a sentence. This adds another supporting reason not to remove "hay". See the example above. Dear me, they stripped the whole sentence.

Translation provided:

There's something going wrong.

Hay algo que va mal.

You can try adding this back, above the line marker, and saving the edit:

Hay algo que va mal.

What would happen if someone is talking about Hay bale in Minecraft on Arqade?

Edit: It's fixed now. See Adam Lear ♦'s comment below.

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  • 8
    Yeah, I agree - starting with the next build, we won't treat "hay" as a salutation.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 19:25
  • @AdamLear could you check the list of greetings that are removed and have it updated? I assume you replaced h(e|a)y(?![a-z])| with hey(?![a-z])|.
    – fedorqui 'SO stop harming'
    Commented Jan 4, 2018 at 8:18
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    @fedorqui Yep, that's right.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jan 4, 2018 at 15:53
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    @AdamLear I think there must be some missing \s+ in the regex that is indicated in the list of greetings. hello23\n matches it, but does not get removed. Also, following Let's make the automatic removal of salutations language specific! I see that there is probably a limit of 23 characters overall, since estimados tengo una duda does not get removed, while estimados tengo una dud does.
    – fedorqui 'SO stop harming'
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 11:19
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    Can you please explain why you overrode the approval of the suggested edit? The edit was correctly approved and should not have been rejected. I understand it made a few stylistic changes that go against some of your intentions, but it correctly removed a dead image from your post and a character that confuses screen readers. I also understand that the word "above" is referring to the lack of a sentence at the top (as it was stripped in the past), but it's confusing to readers of your post since the actual example (of You can try adding this back, above the line marker) is below it.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 9:53
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    Next time, if you completely disapprove of an edit that was approved by other users but was made in good faith, please simply roll it back without overriding it - overriding an approval to a rejection has the added effect of penalizing the user (revoking their earned reputation) and should only be done when the edit was clearly in bad faith. (Of course, if it's still reviewable, then go ahead and reject it, as it's not as bad since they won't earn reputation in the first place rather than earning it and having it revoked.)
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 9:59
  • Rejecting an edit because it conflicted with the author's intent seems like a valid rejection reason to me...
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Jul 7, 2023 at 12:34
  • Above and below make very little sense in the context of SE - do we mean in the question ?
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Jul 7, 2023 at 22:54
  • @CodyGray-onstrike That's right, but insisting that a dead image be embedded (where it's not explicitly part of testing out a bug or similar things) is not good form. Rolling back an edit in whole means that you disagree with all parts of it. As I said earlier, it's fine to reject if it's still reviewable (though it's better to "Reject and Edit" and edit out the dead image), but overriding something that was approved by community members should be reserved for bad-faith cases (especially when a button to revert without penalizing exists).
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Jul 9, 2023 at 3:58
  • @SonictheAnonymousHedgehog I was on the review page when I clicked "reject" and was told "this edit has already been approved, refresh first". Re "especially when a button to revert without penalizing exists": If only such a button was more accessible.
    – iBug says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jul 9, 2023 at 6:42
  • @iBugsaysReinstateMonica Ah, so you tried to review, and it was reviewable when you loaded the task, but someone else cast its final approval before you could submit your rejection. Given the short time delay between the second approval and your override, that makes sense. Also, now that I look at it, the removal of the dead image wasn't clearly shown in the "rendered output" view. I'd strongly recommend you check the edit summaries when reviewing edits, as they may document things when they aren't clearly shown in the rendered output view - the removal was noted in the edit summary.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Jul 9, 2023 at 6:57

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