Questions tagged [discussion]

Questions that may not necessarily have a clear-cut right or wrong answer and are often subjective. If your question isn't a bug report, feature request, or request for assistance, or question with a concrete answer, it's probably a discussion.

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What is Stack Overflow Labs? Why is it sponsoring GenAI SE?

I recently noticed a new webpage: https://stackoverflow.co/labs/ What's the purpose of this new webpage? When was this created? Was there any staff announcement about this webpage? I just got to ...
Random Person's user avatar
62 votes
1 answer
2k views

Planned maintenance scheduled for Thursday, June 15, 2023 at 21:00 UTC

tl;dr; We are updating a piece of network hardware on Thursday, June 15, 2023 at 21:00 UTC, that will cause some internal traffic disruption for about a 1 minute duration. It's possible this could ...
Mike Frank's user avatar
  • 1,412
-18 votes
12 answers
805 views

Is there a correlation between opposing the use of AI-generated content on Stack Exchange and rating AI low in general?

Intro I have seen people whose critique of ChatGPT rests on citing examples of unskillful use. Can resistance to permitting ChatGPT on Stack Exchange be in part attributed to an inaccurate appraisal ...
hmltn's user avatar
  • 406
34 votes
1 answer
512 views

Have voting patterns changed significantly after the recent change in voting button arrow style?

Two weeks ago on May 30, a change in the vote button style went live on the network. Instead of large triangles, there are now smaller triangles with larger circles around them and changed color ...
NoDataDumpNoContribution's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
157 views

What is the point of the "Established User" privilege on meta SE? [duplicate]

You can see the vote counts at only 100 reputation here. As far as I understand, all it lets you do is see vote counts. But here on meta it adds no new abilities, so all it is is a confusing privilege ...
Starship - On Strike's user avatar
27 votes
0 answers
239 views

When promoting the 2023 Developer Survey, did you analyze how the phrasing of the survey invitation might have influenced responses?

It appears there were at least 2 emails sent to promote the survey on AI tool usage. One of them is titled: 2023 Dev Survey: Are you using AI tools in your workflow? the other: The 2023 Developer ...
Bryan Krause's user avatar
  • 13.3k
115 votes
4 answers
1k views

When will Stack Exchange's senior leadership stop breaking their own moderator agreement?

A new article about the strike was posted on The Verge. In it, it is revealed that a statement by Philippe was issued, and claims the following: When asked by The Verge about the contrast between ...
Sébastien Renauld's user avatar
-46 votes
2 answers
320 views

Could SE actually work without voting?

So content will simply be "bumped" with the most recent interaction or update, like the usual forums/threads, etc. I have very rarely voted on anything in recent years (usually just looking ...
prusswan's user avatar
  • 720
-15 votes
5 answers
750 views

If bad AI content gets upvoted, is the voting system the problem?

Summary If bad AI content gets upvoted, can we use that as an opportunity to understand & improve our voting system? Should we focus more on the fact that bad AI content is bad, and not that it ...
hmltn's user avatar
  • 406
14 votes
2 answers
935 views

Is SE in violation of the CC BY-SA 4.0 license by not providing data dumps?

SE is no longer providing data dumps for the content contributed by their users. CC BY-SA 4.0 states: No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally ...
CharonX's user avatar
  • 1,041
519 votes
11 answers
23k views

Moderation Strike update: Data dumps, choosing representatives, GPT data, and where we’re holding

Update On August 2nd, 2023, negotiations between community representatives and representatives of the company concluded with an agreement being reached. The details of the agreement can be found at ...
Nick is tired's user avatar
-14 votes
1 answer
166 views

Question ban without any reason [duplicate]

I got a question ban on Physics SE. The reason stated was that most of my questions did not met the guidelines. However, most of my questions have positive votes. What is the reason for the ban?
user avatar
113 votes
6 answers
2k views

Is "You need us, we don't need you" a difficult concept for S.E. leadership to understand?

Regarding the reversal of the AI generated content ban, once again I'm astonished at the self-serving decisions and actions taken by those who profit materially from this network. Alienating trusted ...
anongoodnurse's user avatar
-69 votes
11 answers
584 views

Should striking moderators resign or lose their diamonds?

I understand that there is a moderator strike action that many diamond moderators are participating in. Should striking moderators resign their diamonds and/or have them taken away? During the major ...
Robert Columbia's user avatar
36 votes
0 answers
260 views

Is the 'restrictions'/'guardrails' on dump access going to affect the Overflow Offline project?

I've generally been interested in the CSR aspect of Stack Overflow Inc. One of the initiatives that Stack Overflow Inc. was working on was the Overflow Offline project. As per your own media - it ...
Journeyman Geek's user avatar
  • 165k
40 votes
0 answers
215 views

Stopping data dumps to "protect data" - harmful and threatening to the community

I find it a bit odd that "senior leadership is working on a strategy to protect Stack Overflow data from being misused by companies building LLMs", but historically has only cared about ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 41.4k
74 votes
1 answer
1k views

The company appears to have been particularly reticent, even somewhat secretive, regarding communications during the past several months

My reading of thousands of posts here, from over most of the time period going back to shortly after SO started, indicates the company has often not done a particularly good job of communicating with ...
John Omielan's user avatar
  • 12.9k
37 votes
3 answers
1k views

Why was "An Update to our Community and an Apology" originally deleted and can it be undeleted?

For those voting to close this as a dupe, it's not a dupe, I'm looking for non-speculative answers (an official one) and more importantly I'm looking for it to be undeleted or at the very least an ...
Script47's user avatar
  • 17.2k
11 votes
0 answers
228 views

What initiatives exist to create a publicly available dump of SE under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license?

SE is not providing a dump for the time being. They may do it again in the future, but with some restrictive ToS/license/etc. This makes me wonder: What initiatives exist to create a publicly ...
Franck Dernoncourt's user avatar
43 votes
2 answers
709 views

How can SE gate access to the Dump that will allow individuals access to the data while preventing "misuse" by for-profit organizations?

I read this answer written by Jody Bailey: We are looking for ways to gate access to the Dump, APIs, and SEDE, that will allow individuals access to the data while preventing misuse by organizations ...
Franck Dernoncourt's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
206 views

When does the SE "senior leadership" plan to re-enable the uploads of the data dump to Archive.org? [duplicate]

I read this answer written by AMtwo: The job that uploads the data dump to Archive.org was disabled on 28 March, and marked to not be re-enabled without approval of senior leadership. This is a huge ...
Franck Dernoncourt's user avatar
26 votes
2 answers
446 views

Could someone legally replace Stack Exchange in posting the data dumps to the Internet Archive?

Recently the user discovered that without any official communication the company stopped posting the monthly data dump to the Internet Archive web site. Causes are currently unknown but some users ...
SPArcheon's user avatar
  • 25k
-28 votes
1 answer
293 views

Open feedback and questions for Philippe (regarding communication around the AI policy rollout) [closed]

For context: Philippe, you have published this post, to which, one of my responses was this post. I have received your response in the form of a comment, which, for the sake of a duly structured ...
Levente's user avatar
  • 1,887
16 votes
1 answer
401 views

Why aren't all moderation policies made public?

I read this comment written by Meta Andrew T.: "I thought moderation policies were supposed to be public." just want to mention that mods also have their own mod-only help pages which have ...
Franck Dernoncourt's user avatar
-46 votes
4 answers
466 views

Possible solutions to why there is still so much 'attitude' and condescension on S.O. after there's been work to eliminate it

Why does SO have so much attitude and condescension, even after several measures have been taken to eliminate it? We can and need to do better Problem: S.O. still has so many people with a bad ...
MaxRocket's user avatar
93 votes
1 answer
973 views

If SE won't allow heuristics to identify AI, how does it plan on stopping spam-profile accounts boosted by AI posts?

I've now seen more than 2,000 posts that I suspect are AI on Stack Overflow alone. I've flagged over 1,200 of these. The remainder were already handled, handled under one of the other flags, or in ...
NotTheDr01ds's user avatar
  • 4,114
-13 votes
1 answer
237 views

Add # next to each answer?

I would like to suggest adding the answer number (#) to each answer on a page. This makes it easier to know which answer you are at when scrolling down a list of many and long answers. For instance, I ...
machine_1's user avatar
  • 377
67 votes
37 answers
15k views

GPT on the platform: Data, actions, and outcomes

In a meeting with some moderators last week, I committed to releasing the data sets from our initial studies around the efficacy and false positive rates of ChatGPT detectors to them. Tuesday ...
Philippe's user avatar
  • 19.7k
108 votes
1 answer
2k views

Price of AI floodgates inaction

I was going to post this as an answer (among many) under @Philippe's Statement from SO: June 5, 2023 Moderator Action, but that's currently locked, apparently due to concerns about the title, out of ...
dxiv's user avatar
  • 933
56 votes
1 answer
740 views

With AI answers now being essentially unmoderated, what data might be surfacing that demonstrates the old policy was effective?

It's been about a week since the community and moderators lost the ability to effectively moderate AI content. Given that time, we should start to see some data/patterns emerge that could tell us (...
NotTheDr01ds's user avatar
  • 4,114
117 votes
1 answer
1k views

This community is the Stack Exchange network

I am relatively new to the Stack Exchange network, I've only been active on Stack Overflow for a few months now. I must say, I have been consistently amazed by this community and everything it does. ...
MissSkooter stands w Palestine's user avatar
-584 votes
22 answers
40k views

Statement from SO: June 5, 2023 Moderator Action

Update: GPT on the platform: Data, actions, and outcomes As you may be aware, a number of moderators (on Stack Overflow/across the network) have decided to stop engaging in several activities that ...
Philippe's user avatar
  • 19.7k
229 votes
1 answer
2k views

Moderators do not (and never did) rely blindly on automatic GPT detector tools

A recent statement from the SE company to the press suggests that company spokespeople (the CEO or whoever writes his statements) believe that moderators have been relying on ChatGPT detection tools ...
Rand al'Thor's user avatar
  • 32.6k
57 votes
1 answer
723 views

Why wasn't the new policy about AI generated content made more visible outside of Meta?

As by question title if the company considers (by their own claim) Meta just a "minority" of the network userbase, why wasn't the new policy about AI generated content advertised more to the ...
SPArcheon's user avatar
  • 25k
4 votes
0 answers
116 views

Looking for the right Stack Exchange site for parsing CAN bus data

I'm looking for the right place to post about a CAN bus issue I'm looking for. Specifically parsing the data I'm getting in the messages I'm receiving. Basically, I'm getting data from a CAN bus and ...
Ash Oldershaw's user avatar
64 votes
1 answer
642 views

Why wasn't the guidance to moderators on how to moderate AI Generated content made publicly available?

I read in this question written by Philippe: Stack Exchange released guidance to moderators on how to moderate AI Generated content. Why wasn't the guidance to moderators on how to moderate AI ...
Franck Dernoncourt's user avatar
1178 votes
14 answers
110k views

Moderation Strike: Stack Overflow, Inc. cannot consistently ignore, mistreat, and malign its volunteers

Update On August 2nd, 2023, negotiations between community representatives and representatives of the company concluded with an agreement being reached. The details of the agreement can be found at ...
Mithical's user avatar
  • 71.1k
16 votes
0 answers
271 views

Should the Misleading Information Policy apply to Meta posts?

A brand-new Misleading Information Policy has just been released that encourages users to flag, and for moderators to delete, posts that they feel are false in a dangerous way. Many of the examples ...
Robert Columbia's user avatar
21 votes
0 answers
384 views

What is the false positive rate of GPT detectors for content on the SE network? [duplicate]

I read in this answer written by Philippe: We've also identified that current GPT detectors have an unacceptably high false positive rate for content on our network and should not be regarded as ...
Franck Dernoncourt's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
50 views

What are the differences between the question and answer follow buttons? [duplicate]

I just realized that the original question has a clickable follow button and also if someone answers a question that has a clickable follow button. If I want to follow the original question, I ...
Big Joe's user avatar
  • 748
14 votes
3 answers
525 views

How could AI be used to augment curation tooling?

I've been doing a lot of things that keep making me think a machine could do it: Fixing typos, editing out noise, flagging obvious non-answers, flagging noisy comments, etc. I'm not of the position ...
starball's user avatar
  • 18.3k
98 votes
4 answers
1k views

Sustainability of new AI generated content policy

There is a user on Stack Overflow, who posted six answers within 12 (!) minutes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Those answers are quite clearly AI-generated: common style, extreme speed, extreme variety of ...
markalex's user avatar
  • 1,794
11 votes
1 answer
555 views

Is there an external space dedicated or strongly related to Stack Exchange Community?

The chat initially referred to as "the third place", Web-based IRC for the Trilogy?, for whatever reason, has been left at the bottom of the feature-request queue. I'm wondering if there is ...
Rubén's user avatar
  • 14.3k
20 votes
1 answer
403 views

The new Code of Conduct references are so obsolete they harm the Code of Conduct: is this repairable?

I wonder what the point is of a Code of Conduct that refers to supporting material that's so out of date that the supporting material now violates the Code of Conduct? I certainly support the idea of ...
JBH's user avatar
  • 2,013
69 votes
1 answer
2k views

What does Prashanth mean by "Community" in his blogposts, and how do the mods influence his perception of it?

A few weeks ago, I posted an answer to New blog post from our CEO Prashanth: Community is the future of AI asking for an interpretation of the CEO's words for the regular users of Meta Stack Exchange. ...
Rubén's user avatar
  • 14.3k
58 votes
1 answer
948 views

The new Code of Conduct didn't address significant feedback given. Why ask if you won't incorporate feedback?

Some of the content is unnecessarily verbose. I had pointed some examples out during the review of the draft (both when it was shared with moderators and again in the public review). The "...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 41.4k
92 votes
10 answers
6k views

Blog post: CEO Update: Paving the road forward with AI and community at the center

The CEO [of SE] recently posted a blog post titled CEO Update: Paving the road forward with AI and community at the center. Stack Exchange staff haven't posted a request-for-comments on it, so... I ...
cocomac's user avatar
  • 9,052
8 votes
2 answers
160 views

What should I do if a question I'm considering asking would be closed as a duplicate, but I don't understand the duplicate's answer?

To make this clear, I’m asking about a question that I would have that has already been answered but is still difficult to understand or confuses me. I have read this on duplicates, but I’m wondering ...
leguchi's user avatar
  • 490
41 votes
0 answers
313 views

When posting announcements either post them as QUESTIONS so that people can actually answer or make the entire thread LOCKED if no input is wanted

Recently Stack Exchange posted a new question about a policy on AI generated content. What is the network policy regarding AI Generated content? The post was made as a fake question, with the actual ...
SPArcheon's user avatar
  • 25k
137 votes
13 answers
4k views

Discussion: Network policy regarding AI Generated content

A new Network policy regarding AI Generated content was recently announced by Stack Exchange. As discussion is not currently permitted on such posts, please discuss the policy in the answers here so ...
Ryan M's user avatar
  • 26.7k