Moderation log format change posts 31–58

Taking post #44 at face value and following it one step further.

The honest answer on moderation log format change is that it depends, and the useful part is the list of what it depends on. Four items, in rough order of how much they matter.

Most people get the first two right and then argue about the fourth.

I read the earlier replies on moderation log format change twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.

Worth saying publicly: stepping back cleanly and handing over is a service. Documents with an absent maintainer go wrong quietly, which is the worst way for them to go wrong.

This has been discussed before and I could not find the thread, so, again.

I read post #46 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.

Implementation timeline: announcements include when a change takes effect. Marking the date helps you know whether the change is already in effect.

It is a small point and it changes the answer, which is an awkward combination.

One question about the transition rather than the policy: what happens to topics that are in flight when it takes effect? The announcement is clear about posts and silent about drafts.

The strength of my opinion here exceeds the strength of my evidence.

Worth separating two things that post #46 runs together.

Supportive, with one reservation worth stating in public: the change makes a common case slightly slower in exchange for making a rare case much better. That is usually right and it is not automatically right.

The number is defensible. The precision I gave it is not.

Moderation log format change has been discussed here with more heat than it deserves, mostly because two definitions have been in play the whole time.

Narrowing post #49, because the general version has more than one answer.

Reading the changed pages: the diff is smaller than the announcement implies, which is reassuring rather than disappointing. A large change to a documentation page usually means the previous version was wrong.

A qualification I should have led with rather than closed on.

Noting appreciation rather than asking anything. Several years of unpaid work on something with no leaderboard and a public log of your mistakes is a peculiar thing to volunteer for.

I am confident about the direction and much less about the magnitude.

The most useful thing anyone has posted about moderation log format change in this category was a table of what had been measured and by whom. That is what I would want again.

Two claims get bundled together under moderation log format change and they need separating. The descriptive one — this is what was observed — is usually well supported. The causal one — this is why — usually is not.

Almost every disagreement in threads like this one dissolves once you say which of the two you are making.

I came in to disagree and I am leaving without a disagreement.

Where I part company with post #53, and it is a narrow parting.

Practical question on the rollout: will it be visible that a topic was created before or after the change? Six months from now nobody will remember the date.

Flagging that the sources on this are thinner than the confidence in the thread suggests.

The moderation log will carry the announcement entry, so the date is recoverable. It will not be visible on the topic itself, which is probably the right level of clutter.

It is worth stating the boring hypothesis before the interesting one.