-7

From this Chess.SE meta post we have:

Chloe [staff] is a new contributor.  Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.

It feels a bit mismatched for this message to pop up for Stack Exchange staff.

Question: Do we really need "new contributor" messages for Stack Exchange staff?

4
  • 13
    Counter question: Do we really need them to be exempt from those badges? It will take dev-time to code this, is it really the best way to spend that time?
    – Luuklag
    Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 8:49
  • 3
    Related: What a very bad day at work taught me about building Stack Overflow’s community and The Loop : March 2020 - "Stack Overflow employees ... many felt discouraged or experienced full on anxiety at the thought of making a Meta post" (corresponding meta postan answer addresses the quote) Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 11:00
  • Related: meta.stackexchange.com/q/376073 (deleted question) Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 12:28
  • (I'm posting this for people who can't see the deleted question) I posted a very similar question and this is what one of the users said: "Why do other users need to do the discussing for you here? Why not just make it a feature request to remove this/change this, with your own arguments for doing so? What would be the purpose of having a discussion about this?" Rebecca's question got better responses from other users :) Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 12:56

2 Answers 2

22

Do we really need "new contributor" messages for Stack Exchange staff?

Well, yes. Being staff does not mean they have experience inside each site of Stack Exchange. By all means, they are indeed new contributors.

11

Do we really need "new contributor" messages for Stack Exchange staff?

I think it's useful, being a regular it's easy to forget that it likely took years to understand SE's functionalities, etiquette, etc... The only way for a new staff member to be affluent in all the skills you can develop in using the site is if they were recruited from within the community.

And I kind of think it's funny to get a system warning saying: "This staff member is still a newbie" :P LOL

10
  • 2
    affluent? Did you mean cognizant or something else? Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 9:53
  • @RobertLongson was the dictionary wrong?
    – bad_coder
    Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 9:53
  • 1
    Good old' @RobertLongson you're too materialistic equating wealth exclusively to money. I advise more dictionaries, in half-a-dozen languages, immerse thyself in broader semantics and meanings.
    – bad_coder
    Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 9:57
  • 8
    Well "rich" would kind of work and of course rich and affluent are synonyms. But rich also means abundant and that's the meaning you're trying to use here I think. Affluent doesn't have that meaning though. Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 10:01
  • 6
    It feels really rude for you to speak to @RobertLongson that way. You don't have to change it but I've personally not run into anyone using "affluent" to refer to anything other than wealth... in English. It's somewhat frustrating that your preference is to double down on a word and make a condescending comment rather than consider alternatives.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 20:10
  • @Catija it's not rude, I think, because I've interacted with Robert many times before and it's always been peaceful. It's a kind of humor -as I think is evident looking at the sentence- as a whole (fluent, af+fluent, river, immerse - both in the linguistic and physical/aquatic sense, both in the morphological and semantic). It holds well, over a number of languages - and as Robert noted- over synonymy. Now, you may say not everyone "gets it" or "likes it" but it's innocuous, joyful, playful, not lexicalized, and thus almost irresistible for the polyglot, as if speaking were a form of being.
    – bad_coder
    Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 20:17
  • @Catija I'm at a loss for a rigorous phonetic analyses, but I like how the 2 consonant "ff" encounter between the affix and the radical almost makes us forget the word isn't "fluent" which would fit the sentence like a glove. I like it so much I couldn't resist highlighting it (also convenient to avoid rephrase). Syntactically the sentence has a "hidden subject" which in this case isn't the interlocutor (off course) but the dictionary entry, remitting to my deeper Etymological wondering of when and how fluent went from fluid to a sense of wealth in af+fluent (to my surprise) after derivation.
    – bad_coder
    Commented Sep 28, 2022 at 20:52
  • 2
    Write to express, not to impress. Is it really so hard to rephrase the sentence to make it clearer? Commented Sep 29, 2022 at 0:56
  • @RebeccaJ.Stones honestly yes, and I liked the sentence the way it came out. (Whatever happened to creative writing and having some fun in expressing oneself?) Please, be my guest edit how you see best and flag anything you consider no longer relevant.
    – bad_coder
    Commented Sep 29, 2022 at 1:27
  • I thought "affluent" was a typo for "fluent". Commented Sep 30, 2022 at 7:44

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .