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Currently, The Ink Spot description reads as such:

GDSE's banter bin. Where we complain about clients, post cute animal gifs, and discuss lazy questions but not politics.

I can't help but find that it makes it look bad (except the posting cute animal gifs). "Where we complain about clients", "discuss lazy questions"...

I haven't been around chat much lately but I haven't seen a whole lot of folks complaining about clients, and I don't think we should make it look like this is a proper place to do so, granted everything is logged. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with describing the room with a humorous tone but I just think it could be a bit more "welcoming" as per the new Code of Conduct. Thoughts?

ETA: One of my main reasons to question this is not just the fact that I find it unprofessional to incite people to come rant about clients and that everything is logged but it's feasible to land in chat and view conversations through a Google query. I don't know how often chat gets indexed but it seems to be searchable by outsiders. I think people often perceive chatrooms as ephemeral and "safe" but it's not really the case here.

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  • Maybe. What do you propose?
    – PieBie Mod
    Aug 17, 2018 at 15:29
  • @PieBie I first wanted to get a sense of if I'm the only one getting this vibe and if I'm not, then we could have a meta to suggest a new description alike to the one that had initially been created to discuss the name.
    – curious Mod
    Aug 17, 2018 at 15:39
  • Fair enough. Personally I don't mind the current description, but I wouldn't mind changing it either.
    – PieBie Mod
    Aug 17, 2018 at 15:56
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    It's quite vague, and makes no explicit search-friendly reference to "graphic design". I have no idea what a "lazy question" refers to. At the very, very least it should be reworded to "The banter bin of graphic design.stackexchange.com" or something similarly plain.
    – George C
    Aug 23, 2018 at 20:57

3 Answers 3

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This is all my own opinion and the way I see it - non official

It's more of a guide on what can and cannot be posted here.

GDSE's banter bin

General description of the room

Where we complain about clients, post cute animal gifs, and discuss lazy questions

All of these are ok to chat about in the room

but not politics.

Politics are not allowed

Some folks might think that they can't rant about clients or discuss posts from our site, or even post cute animal gifs.

It's just a general guide saying:

"Yes, you can do all of these things"

(amongst others - it's not limiting to those few topics)

I think that the current description is fine and doesn't need to be changed.

If there was a change proposed, I'd definitely be open to changing it, I just don't see it as a problem currently.

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    Please see ETA in my question. "All of these are ok to chat about in the room" ...but if a user complains about a client and the client finds out, it's at the user's own risk. I'm not sure that's clear enough. Of course this is the online world and ranting anywhere is never completely safe but I'm assuming many chatrooms elsewhere are not logged/searchable.
    – curious Mod
    Aug 17, 2018 at 16:13
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    @Emilie If you are not savvy enough to mask your online social presence from employers maybe you do deserve the risk YOU put onto YOURSELF. No one is making you rant. Everything WELZ posted is spot on.
    – Stegathesaurus
    Aug 29, 2018 at 21:10
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    "All of these are ok to chat about in the room" Sure, but should we really encourage the negativity is what I'm asking. You said yourself in chat (and it got starred 7 times!) "I really dislike that we always seem to be gossiping about other users. - jun 18 at 16:55 by WELZ"
    – curious Mod
    Aug 30, 2018 at 1:45
  • @Ovaryraptor Granted one only needs to be 13 (16 in the EU) to register for an SE account, I think your expectations of common sense/responsibility are a bit high for some users.
    – curious Mod
    Aug 30, 2018 at 1:47
  • @Emilie I was specifically talking about other users, meaning everybody here will know who (and maybe even what) you're talking about. Complaining about a client/customer - without stating their identity (duh!) is a very common thing.
    – Welz
    Aug 30, 2018 at 2:01
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    Clear answer. But, why?
    – Vincent
    Aug 29, 2018 at 8:35
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Why?

enter image description here

I don't see why you are trying to stir up stuff. The description was wonderfully broken down by WELZ, everything fits a purpose in a fun descriptive way.

"....I find it unprofessional to invite people to come rant about clients....I think people often perceive chatrooms as ephemeral and "safe" but it's not really the case here."

If you aren't separating or preventing your online activity from reaching your employer you maybe need a lesson in common sense.

There are ample stories about people losing scholarships, jobs and other opportunities due to bad judgment. Common sense rules the world.

The internet isn't your mom, no one is going to hold your hand and tell you what to not say and what to not vent about that client that made you redo a proof in another color just because the green wasn't "pine enough".

That line about client venting serves the purpose of showing casual users that the atmosphere isn't just straight Q&A design talk 24/7. You can relax and chat normally with people.

I see no way that this violates the new "code of conduct" or makes it any more inaccessible to users.

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  • Hair-splitting might be a better way to put it than "stir stuff up". I've been dealing with ethics for my own research and done stuff with media privacy before so they are concerns of mine but it's not keeping me from sleeping at night! I do find it odd that the community seems to feel so strongly about the description but that's what asking is for. My own experience is that the description doesn't really fit what is typically discussed. I did do a quick browse at other chatroom descriptions and found others were a lot less negative (which doesn't mean they can't be funny).
    – curious Mod
    Aug 30, 2018 at 1:24
  • -1 for being unnecessarily antagonistic. Emilie is not trying to 'stir stuff up', she just pointed out a (valid imo) point in a friendly manner and asked us to think about it. I think you're taking a neutral observation and making it into something it is not.
    – PieBie Mod
    Aug 30, 2018 at 7:06

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