In the U.S. at least, due process is considered a right that is so important that it is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.      Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual person from it. When a government harms a person without following the exact course of the law, this constitutes a due process violation, which offends the rule of law.   -Wikipedia  It is important that the Stack Exchange network ensure that there is a due process for appealing all moderator actions on every Stack Exchange site. The federal powers of the SEN reign supreme over the individuals statehoods of the individual SE sites. The SEN must enable due process to appeal the unfair timed bans on individual SE sites because an appeal is not possible when a person is banned. There is no way for a banned user to post a meta question or to request an appeal in any way on the site that banned him.  Due Process is not something limited to huge governments, nations, or courtrooms. It is what is simply the standardization of a system of conflict resolution. This standardization helps to prevent abuse by individuals entrusted with authority.  You have heard the saying 'power corrupts--absolute power corrupts absolutely.' People who enjoy abusing other people tend to seek out positions of authority. No, we cannot legislate morality, but in the immortal words of Martin Luther King, “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”      The utility of internal organizational systems of conflict resolution, or “due process,” rests on the formulation of specific objectives and values, a high degree of decision-maker independence, balanced formality of procedures, and matching types of conflict with means of resolution.    Please incorporate this new feature. Do it for MLK. Do it for the dream.
15090
One or more of the following things happened to me on a Stack Exchange site:   My post(s) were wrongly deleted or locked by a moderator A moderator posted a wrong comment on one of my posts I was suspended, but did not do anything wrong I asked a meta question, but the question was closed and/or deleted A moderator discredited me in public ...   I think a moderator has abused their power, but I feel powerless against them.  What recourse do I have now? What can I do when I feel that a moderator has abused their power, and has been repeatedly unfair in their dealings with me?
78035
There is a lot of irritation and whining from newbies when their suggestions get downvoted because they don't understand that votes have a different meaning here.   This is unnecessary, and I'm absolutely sure is one of the contributing factors why some people turn away from Meta after first contact, and never return.  To fix this, when a user asks their first question here, it should be pointed out in big bold letters that voting follows different rules here than on the mother site.  Something like     Note that voting on Meta.stackoverflow.com works differently from the other Stack Exchange sites. Voting is used as an expression of agreement or disagreement on contributions here, rather than to point out a lack of quality or helpfulness. Do not be too concerned if you receive downvotes - it is possible that members of the community are simply  disagreeing with what your contribution is suggesting.
12354
This is not originally my question but someone deleted their question while I was typing an answer to it. Consequently, I'm reposting the question and then my answer -- n.b., I've changed the title slightly to correct for what I'm guessing he deleted the question for.    I'm studying existentialism at the moment and Sartre's explanation of existentialist ethics is as follows:     Thus, the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders. And, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.   And     Our responsibility is thus much greater than we had supposed, for it concerns mankind as a whole.   (Existentialism and Humanism).   This sounds similar to Kant's categorical imperative - the idea that when making a decision, we should imagine making a universal law for all of mankind.  So, is this Sartre borrowing from Kant?
112258
As is, it sounds a bit awkward to me.  Let me try to incorporate what I am after into a sentence. Just as Bush once said "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.", I would like to write something along these lines: "Double standard does not bother me for as long as I am the one engaging in/doing it".  It does not quite roll off the tongue. Hopefully there is a better way.
35463
I read this sentence on BBC News,     He was among those beaten by police during the infamous Selma-Montgomery voting rights march of 1965.   link:   As  I read suggested, Infamous is used for      having an extremely bad reputation   or     deserving of or causing an evil reputation   It seems to me, the word infamous only can be used to describe a event caused by the bad people, so in this BBC News article, it is the attack on the march being bad (infamous) and the march itself organised by civil rights activists to express a good will is not.  I just lost here, can someone explain it to me why they use infamous here?
81543
I am trying to think of what the name of the word/phrase is for when: An important task (not a difficult one, but a mission critical one) is at hand and instead of one person being assigned to it, a group takes on the responsibility to mitigate any consequences happening to one person in case something goes wrong and also to prevent a mistake or malicious intent occurring from one persons doing. (NOT because the task is big and needs to be divided in a group.) E.g.   Two different people needing to turn a key each in a device simultaneously to launch a missile.  Group of people tallying up votes for an election in case one of them were bridged to rig the outcome.
49596
Suppose the following dialogue:  ... &quot;I accept only one notion of land property. Namely, 'I am doing my stuff here, therefore I am here&quot;. &quot;But this means,&quot; he responded, &quot;you can break into any place and stay there, using this rule.&quot; &quot;There is another rule, though. Right to act in its most natural sense, 'I am here, therefore I am doing my stuff here.&quot; &quot;But do not these rules put together become circular reasoning?&quot; &quot;Of course, they do,&quot; I put my head closer to him, &quot;and this is exactly that rare case when circular reasoning is not only sufficient, but is necessary.&quot; &quot;But why is that? Circular reasoning never was a correct argument.&quot; &quot;There are many circular things happening in nature. Life forms, for example, exist only in order to produce new life forms or to prolongate their own lifetime. Is there any reason to say this can't be the case for reason itself? Why must reasoning not be circular?&quot; ...  Can circular reasoning ever be justified? For example, we know all the words in our languages can't be defined using other words without the use of circularity. We know logic can't prove itself without circularity. Are these arguments rational? Are there any other arguments where circular reasoning is still rational?
36594
I mostly ask this because I'm from Spain and I wouldn't mind working on the United States.  I have the legal right to work there ... provided a did get a Green Pass for which usually helps a lot having a job offer in the first place so... Does it refer just to something like I'm of age and I'm not crazy nor do I intent to kill the USA president?   Or should I uncheck the "legal right" checkbox? And if I do, would that mean that I won't be appearing on US employers searches?
86552
On our main sites &quot;the best answer&quot; is  as the superposition of the highest voted answer and the accepted answer.  Truth be told, the system is rather insistent on allowing multiple &quot;right answers&quot; and that's one of its strengths: you can be the judge of who you believe. But that doesn't always translate well on the per-site metas, which serve as a sort of policy-creation body.  People who are active on meta help decide how policies are enforced on the main site.  Moderators who have ♦-powers tend to take mandates on meta very seriously.  , accepted answers to meta-questions are no different than any other answer.  Does that leave just votes to determine consensus? Closely related: Not everyone participates on meta-sites.  It can be hard to tell if enough people have looked and voted on questions for real consensus to be declared.  Size of the site determines how many people could be voting on questions.  What counts as a quorum? Finally, sometimes people change their minds about a meta-question, but, , it's not really possible to change one's mind without a pointless edit to someone else's answer.  When should meta-questions be revisited?  On graduated sites, ♦ moderators are elected, which makes them representatives of the active participants, but on beta sites, we are appointed.  It's doubly pressing for beta sites to determine &quot;the will of the people&quot; since part of the point of a beta is to get a working policy framework in place before electing permanent moderators. I'm interested in figuring out how sites already answer these questions and what might be done network-wide to make discovering consensus a little bit easier.  N.B.: Obviously this assumes that consensus matters.  It does to me when I'm making my decisions and I suspect it matters to others.  But that isn't to say that it always makes a difference.  I'm really not interested in answers that hope to use this question as a grindstone for all the axes stored up against certain people who have made unpopular decisions and have the power to make those decisions stick.  Feel free to ask your own question(s).  (Thank you.)
119374
While this question is inspired by recent events, it is an independent question and not tied down to any specific moderator or situation.  There's precedent for a moderator who resigned their diamond to simply ask Stack Exchange for their diamond back, without having to stand for reelection. Obviously, this may not apply if the moderator did not resign, but was removed for cause by Stack Exchange.  If a moderator has been "fired" by Stack Exchange (has had their diamond removed involuntarily by corporate action), is the person eligible to pull a  and regain a diamond through the democratic process on one of our sites, or would any such attempt be blocked? I'm aware that there is a restriction on  from standing for election, but this is not the same thing as being stripped of a diamond (fired moderators, IME, aren't also given a full site suspension unless their behavior goes beyond "possibly not a very good moderator" into "supervillain" territory).  If there is no particular rule, what should that rule be?   Should fired moderators be immediately eligible to stand for election, subject only to community approval of them returning? Should fired moderators have to go through a separate re-vetting process with Stack Exchange to regain eligibility to stand for office? Should fired moderators have an ineligibility window in a similar way that suspended users have one (e.g. after X months or years after being fired, they may stand for election). Should fired moderators be forever banned from election?   In no way am I asking about the process for a fired moderator to seek restoration through corporate appeals, etc. I'm asking only about the community election process - if a site's community wants to elect a previously fired moderator, is this inherently objectionable to Stack Exchange?
115055
Isaac Moses, the patriarch of Mi Yodeya, :  [...] the general Stack Exchange directive, expressed in the uneditable part of that section of the About page, to &quot;Focus on questions about an actual problem you have faced. Include details about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.&quot; In fact, while this directive is perfect for the behemoth programming site that Stack Exchange grew out of, it doesn't fit very well for any of the more intellectually-oriented, rather than practically-oriented sites. [...]  This is something that's bugged me for a while, and ended up prompting a discussion between Anna, Aarthi and me. The gist of it: is there any simple test that can be used to identify answerable questions asked in good faith when the &quot;problem to be solved&quot; is... simple curiosity? Obviously, this is something that sites like  and  have had to contend with for some time, but now and then such questions pop up even on sites where folks are generally trying to solve real problems. While a potentially interesting thought experiment, . Strictly-speaking, problems like that fail the  test. And yet, I would keep that question simply because I learned something useful from the answers − not necessarily something I would ever apply to socks mind you, but certainly something I might apply to similar problems. I don't believe the question was asked in bad faith or for mindless social fun; yet, I have a bit of trouble stretching the definition of &quot;based on actual problems&quot; to contain it. Obviously, the fact that we're hosting a growing number of sites dedicated mostly or entirely to intellectual curiosity makes this something of a rhetorical question. The &quot;actual problems&quot; part of the FAQ was added specifically to draw a line between good and bad  − heading off  and their ilk. But it's a pretty damn good litmus test, and if it's ok to ignore it for some questions − or particularly for  − then what should stand in its place?
121535
Questions are the lifeblood of any Stack Exchange site. But asking good questions can be difficult, and while most people start off doing it poorly, some never get better. For years now, when sites reached traffic levels that made manual review and filtering of questions burdensome for the good folks answering them, we've enabled systems to :  We believe asking questions on our site is a privilege, not a right. If, after a few fair attempts, you haven’t been able to prove that your contributions to Stack Overflow make it at least … not-worse … then we reserve the right to refuse your questions. If we don’t do our part to cull the bad questions, then we risk alienating the true experts who provide what really matters: the answers!  Prior to today, these &quot;comprehensive&quot; checks have been enabled on only 8 sites. After much discussion and soul-searching, we've decided to enable them everywhere. Users who encounter this block are directed to , which explains what that person must do to lift the block. Moderators have access to information on whether or not a given user would be blocked if they try to ask, as well as whether or not they've previously encountered the block, for those cases where it is desirable to provide one-on-one support. What you can do to help Quality blocks are based on each community's rating of questions and answers, therefore the most useful things you can do are:   if you see a great, thoughtfully asked, well researched question, vote it up — please! Great questions are an art! if you see an egregiously sloppy, no-effort-expended question that you feel was asked in bad faith … vote it down. anything in between that’s salvageable, edit it!   Don't worry about the exact details of the algorithm used for blocking - in general, it's fairly conservative as far as who or what gets blocked. On the majority of sites, this will affect few if any users in the near future. Most users will encounter  and  long before they encounter this block. As always, vote your conscience and encourage new members to participate constructively. Feel free to post questions or concerns here. If you encounter problems specific to a given site, please post on that site's meta. If you encounter this block and want it lifted, read the instructions linked to in the block message.
15201
So I had a dispute with the moderators at a specific SE site. As a result, I got suspended there. As per SE guidelines, I pressed the "Contact us" button and wrote to the higher powers to appeal.  That was 5-6 weeks ago. There was zero feedback, neither positive, nor negative, not even "it's in progress, please wait".  So what is this "contact us" thing supposed to do? Is it a placebo to make me feel better while being routed to dev/null?  What is the normal time it takes to process a "contact us" message?  Notes:   As far as I remember, I did not contact the team before. I'm a longtime user of multiple SE sites and never had any problems except for that one site. I'm pretty sure my form was submitted. I didn't make screenshots or anything, because I did not think I would need them in a post like this. I didn't expect a super-fast reply either, so I wasn't wondering after a week or two.
47793
Given the following question, in the context of a poll or vote:  Should any employee of Company X be allowed to assume absolute authority in any project with Company X's name associated?  Under the rules of English, are both of these interpretations valid, therefore making the question ambiguous?  Interpretation #1  &quot;Should any employee of Company X (without restriction; meaning, regardless of their standing in the Company and the amount of support they've received) be allowed to assume absolute authority in any project (without restriction; meaning, any project they wish to embark upon, with or without informing anyone or getting anyone's buy-in) with Company X's name associated?&quot;  Under Interpretation #1, someone would only respond by voting &quot;Yes&quot; if they felt that replacing the word any with every in the original question would be perfectly acceptable. If they could think of just one situation where this would be unacceptable, they'd have to vote &quot;No.&quot;  Interpretation #2  &quot;Should any employee of Company X (ever) be allowed to assume absolute authority in any project (whatsoever) with Company X's name associated?&quot;  Or -- perhaps more clearly --  &quot;Are there any circumstances or conditions under which a Company X employee embarking upon a certain project would be allowed to assume absolute authority over the project with Company X's name associated with it?&quot;  Under Interpretation #2, someone would only vote &quot;No&quot; if they felt that no justification can exist for allowing an employee to have this absolute authority on a project with Company X's name associated. If they felt that some conditions would make it acceptable, then they'd have to vote &quot;Yes&quot;.  Q: Are both of these interpretations valid? If not, which one(s) are incorrect?
93084
Users have the ability to self-delete their questions, as long as no upvoted answer exists. There are two major patterns of misuse of the ability to delete your own questions:   Deleting a question immediately after it was answered, the answer has not enough time to receive an upvote and prevent deletion. Deleting closed or heavily downvoted questions and reasking them mostly unchanged.   These patterns are harmful to the community as they can delete useful content or hide that a user is reasking a bad question multiple times. The only mechanisms against these currently are the automatic question ban and manual intervention of users that observe these patterns.  I'm proposing some new methods or adjustments of existing ones to prevent these harmful self-deletion patterns:  To prevent the immediate deletion of questions after they are answered, there are two possible solutions:   Only allow deletion after a specific delay from the creation time of the answer, so that the answer has enough time to receive some votes and the associated protection from deletion. Prohibit deletion of questions with answers of a non-negative score. This would immediately protect questions that were just answered and still allow deletion if the answer is downvoted. Could be gamed by the asker downvoting themselves, if they have the privilege.   To prevent the misuse of self-deletion to reask the same bad question I propose a new automatic community flag "Consecutive self-deleted posts", similar to the consecutive closed questions. I don't have any hard data, but I would suspect that benign self-deletion of two questions in a row is very rare, and there wouldn't be too much noise caused by this flag.
113904
I've been seeing arguments of this form for awhile:   (agreed true premise) Some predicate P was applicable to behavior/event/thing A in the past. Variations: P(A) may have been true at some particular past time t, or over all past time T. (fallacious consequence) Therefore P(A) is true now. Variations: P(A) must be true now and all futures.   But I haven't known what to call them (e.g., when "calling out" their utterers). The problem seems to me to be due to ignoring (empirical) context and quantity (but has nothing to do with logical quantification). Some examples:   Mass immigration was "good for America" in its (past) history. Therefore mass immigration must be "good for America" now. (P=good for America, A=mass immigration) (even more logically problematic) Humans have been burning fossil fuels for centuries, and "there was no crisis then." Therefore, to claim that fossil fuel combustion is "a crisis now, one must believe that we've been in crisis for centuries." (P=not crisis-producing, A=fossil fuel combustion)   Does this fallacy (or cognitive bias, but this failure "feels logical" to me--ICBW) have a widely-accepted name? Given the extensive and systematic attention to logic and rhetoric over millenia, I suspect this has been previously taxonomized.
53962
I have a pretty active discussion on SO right now, about giving an answer, that could potentially harm the questioner. The question is  and discussion is in comments to .   In short, the OP asks for a way to implement a really dangerous thing. I've provided an answer to the question with a lot of warnings, while  told me that this is a very bad idea, and it is better to use prepared statements, and so on. He is absolutely right; I'm among those who upvoted his answer, but the question remains.   So, I would like to hear community's opinion on that topic. Should we protect others from shooting in their legs, or let them have responsibility to do it, if they want?  Update: One of my university teachers created  site (long ago). The idea of that site is to allow people training their SQL skills. I won't tell much about the site, you can register and check it out yourself (it is available in english), but the whole idea is just the same: execute SQL provided by the user. Of course it is fltered, checked that it is safe, placed in a sandbox, etc. But the concept is just the same. It's rather popular resource, it is on third place in  and have large and growing community. I hope this update will stimulate further discussion.