Revisiting: Moderation log format change posts 61–72

The arithmetic on Moderation log format change is the easy part and it is where the errors are, which is an uncomfortable combination. Show your working and someone will catch it.

My position on Moderation log format change is current rather than settled. I have revised it once already and I expect to again, so treat it accordingly.

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.

I would want to see it done twice before believing it once.

Taking post #61 at face value and following it one step further.

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.

Reading it back, the second half matters more than the first.

I read post #61 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.

Second-hand on Moderation log format change, so weight it accordingly — someone whose method I trust told me this and I have not verified it myself.

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

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.

I have three months of notes on Moderation log format change and the honest summary is that the trend is real and the week-to-week numbers are noise. I nearly drew the opposite conclusion from the first fortnight.

Reporting rather than recommending, on Moderation log format change. What happened is above. Whether it should have is a different question and not one I am qualified to answer.

Post #69 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.

Announcement, with the reasoning rather than just the change. The behaviour described takes effect at the start of next month, it affects posting rather than reading, and nothing already posted changes. Objections belong in Meta and will be answered there.

That is the practical version. The rigorous version is longer and says the same thing.

My experience of Moderation log format change contradicts the reply above. I am posting it as a data point rather than as a refutation, because one person's experience is exactly that.

Following up on the announcement above with the part people usually ask about first: no existing topic is affected, no existing post is edited, and nothing is removed. The change applies from the date forward only.