The Reading Room

Hamlet

12:15 AM

@Shokhet no, sorry, I don't. My recommendation is to find interesting articles about books you enjoy.

Bookworm

1:13 AM

0

Q: Are man and woman like ash and elm? How?

In Neil Gaiman's adaptation of the Norse myths, Norse Mythology, it is sometimes clear that certain elements are used in the stories as a way for the Norse people to transmit useful information and skills to their children. For example, in "The Last Days of Loki," Loki invents a net, and Kvasir d...

Shokhet

@Hamlet Okay. Thank you.

Also, I know that this is partly a question about mythology; however, since the main part of my question is about literary analysis, I asked it here rather than on Mythology. (I'm also familiar with this site, and totally unfamiliar with Mythology, so that also likely played a part.) — Shokhet 8 secs ago

...at some point, I'm going to have to figure out how to use Mythology. However, I don't think that day is today.

Hamlet

1:51 AM

@Shokhet 95% of the questions on Mythology are all on topic on literature.

Shokhet

@Hamlet Interesting.

Hamlet

As someone who once was active on Mythology, my personal opinion is that Mythology should be merged with this site.

Shokhet

@Bookworm No, @Ash, this question isn't about you :P

@Hamlet I had a feeling you might say that. I don't think SE works like that, though.

user15026

@Shokhet laughs well there goes my ego ;)

Shokhet

:)

Bookworm

2:01 AM

0

Q: What does it mean that different parts of humans are created by different gods?

While looking at Norse Mythology to write this question, I read a passage of the book more closely than I had before, and noticed something interesting. When humans are created, the brothers Odin, Villi, and Ve each take a different role in the creation of the first two fully functioning humans b...

neil-gaiman myths

Shokhet

@Hamlet If I understand SE properly, that won't happen unless Mythology completely dies. SE probably looks at this situation, and says "Don't fix what's not broken." M.SE works (or so I'm told), and there's no reason to force their community to disband and reform with us, even though there's a lot of overlap.

There are other sites with overlap: pretty much every Ask Different (Apple) question is on topic on Superuser. I don't know which of those came first (probably AD), but both sites are healthy and work just fine, so SE leaves them be.

BESW

2:30 AM

Some Seasoned Advice users tried to throw a fit when Coffee launched, but nobody cared. A lot of Science Fiction & Fantasy overlaps with Movies & TV, and they share nicely.

Worldbuilding is a place for questions that'd be hammered as too opinion-based but are otherwise on topic for Stacks like Writers and Role-playing Games.

Shokhet

@BESW Coffee is actually an interesting example, where a subset of an older site managed to make it through to proposal and beta. I don't know about Ask Different and SU, but Mythology (arguably a subset of Literature) preceded Literature.

If Coffee can make it, then, a fortiori, Mythology should be left alone.

Bookworm

0

Q: Confusing list in Crime and Punishment

I have started to read some classic books and I am having some trouble understanding some parts of chapter 6 part 3 in Crime and Punishment, this is after Raskolnikov is called a "Murderer" by a man that was in Raskolnikov's lodgings. Briefly after Raskolnikov chases the man and comes back to his...

crime-and-punishment

Hamlet

2:47 AM

Yeah, I know, it's just that I personally think that the Area51 process and the whole make sites for programmers interested in x as a hobby attitude are incredibly destructive.

Which results in a lot of sites that (a) whose scope is based on a misconception of what experts study, or (b) places filled with content that would make any expert run away in seconds.

Literature came out of the Area51 process OK because the subject is actually relatively accessible: it's not too hard to learn.

And because of people like BESW who were able to correct a lot of misconceptions before they became entrenched as site policy.

Most non-technical sites don't make it.

Time will tell if Lit.SE will make it.

I have some time, I'm going to try to write my close reading answer now.

(This has nothing to do with the Stack Exchange platform being unsuitable for non-technical subjects. It has to do with how Stack Exchange populates new sites with enthusiast programmers rather than experts. I'm not trying to insult programmers: the effect would be the same if a bunch of literature experts started a site about learning programming.)

humn

4:12 AM

@Hamlet , Lit SE has made it! (Opinion from one who lilts across wastelandSE.)

Congratulations!

Ouch, though, about programmers. No need to insult them/us, they/we do it automatically.

(insult themselves/ourselves, that is. This edit insults the inability to move back one line.)

(How nerdly... is that your complaint, @Hamlet? It's nature's way.)

(complaint shared, by the way, and admitted to perpetrating)

(I am not an SE/SO guru in disguise. Just wish I were and think I could've been under different circumstances.)

Someone let me delete that last one. Must be how everyone feels. ... and delete this one too.

The raw carriage on display!

Somewhere are editors laughing at this without cleaning up my mess.

"I'd clean up if I only could" -- also misquoted

b_jonas

7:32 AM

@Randal'Thor I don't really like Solaris, and that question is about its English translation, so I can't help there.

Mithrandir

7:51 AM

@Shokhet Super User was one of the original trilogy, so... SU came first. :)

Gallifreyan

8:41 AM

TIL Potterverse has a spell that transforms a raven to a writing desk.

I finished Daniel Clowes' Ghost World. Still processing, but already wondering 1) why the colour green and 2) what's the meaning of "ghost world" written on the fences and the garage door?

Bookworm

8:58 AM

0

Q: Is Doctor Adams a self-insertion in Watership Down?

In chapter 48, "Dea ex Machina", of Watership Down, we meet Doctor Adams. Watership Down is of course written by Richard Adams. Is there any indication besides the surname that this character is a self-insertion by Richard Adams? Or is the surname just a "coincidence"?

watership-down

Gallifreyan

9:55 AM

Oh wow, there's really a film based on Ghost World

Ghost World (film)

Ghost World is a 2001 American black comedy film directed by Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic book of the same name by Daniel Clowes, with a screenplay co-written by Clowes and Zwigoff. The story focuses on the lives of Enid and Rebecca (played by Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson), two teenage outsiders in an unnamed American city. == Plot == Best friends Enid and Rebecca face the summer after their high school graduation. The girls are social outcasts, but Rebecca is more popular with boys than Enid. Enid's diploma is withheld on the condition that she attend a remedial art class. Even though...

I shall watch the film as well.

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan *adds to list*

Gallifreyan

^ Those two look even dorkier than in the graphic novel.

Well, gotta run now.

See you all ;)

Mithrandir

o/

Feeds

1:57 PM

Why does TenSoon run in Brandon Sanderson's #TheHeroofAges? #Mistborn https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/2723/481

Tweeted by StackLiterature on June 19, 2017 at 1:20 PM

Mithrandir

@Feeds good pick @Shok

Shokhet

2:49 PM

@Mithrandir Right.

@Mithrandir Thanks :)

Shokhet

2:59 PM

@Hamlet I clearly haven't give the A51 process as much thought as you have, Hamlet. However, I tend not to think about "hobbyist programmers" as the main population of any SE site, because I am not a programmer. I first came to SE for one of the non-programming sites.

Mithrandir

^so did I. I joined SE for Harry Potter.

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir My library's cover of Sophie's World looks different:

Too bad, I only voted for it because of the Dave-McKean-esque cover.

Mithrandir

My cover doesn't look like the version in my answer either.

Shokhet

Hmm. Do you think we should make norse-mythology into norse-mythology-book, to help alleviate the confusion? I don't know if everyone trying to use the tag will see the wiki excerpt. @Gallifreyan

Gallifreyan

-1 then, let's read what Torisuda suggests. It's also in my library :)

Shokhet

3:09 PM

@Mithrandir It also got a retweet from a random twitter account. Probably because we used the words "Brandon Sanderson."

Gallifreyan

3:30 PM

@Shokhet Meh, let's leave it as is for now. I foresee 0.01 questions per day about either, so it's not a big deal.

Rand al'Thor

5:00 PM

@Shokhet Merges of SE sites have happened at least once before: there was a really complicated story involving the Sound and Video SEs. Ask AJ Henderson for the details, but a quick meta search threw up this and this announcements, along with this post-mortem and this short summary.

(I haven't read any of those links in detail.)

Not sure if merges are something SE would still consider, or if the Sound/Video thing paid off in the end.

HNQ!

@Shokhet OMG, that's an awful tag. Really, really dreadful. It's almost enough to make me turn against using book titles as tags.

We definitely need to do something about that. Maybe norse-mythology-book, as you suggest, or norse-mythology-gaiman.

Bookworm

5:31 PM

0

Q: Help in identifying short article: footsteps in the snow

About ten years ago I read a short article online somewhere (probably just a couple of paragraphs) about a man and his father. Something the father told him when he was young shaped his decisions about who he wanted to be. It made an impression on me, and I've since tried searching for it on the ...

story-identification

Feeds

Was RL Stevenson's #TreasureIsland influenced by Poe's "The Gold-Bug," "MS Found in a Bottle"? Stevenson says yes: https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/2330/481

Tweeted by StackLiterature on June 19, 2017 at 3:45 PM

Rand al'Thor

Ooh, thanks for the Twitter promotion, @Shokhet :-P

Shokhet

6:15 PM

@Randal'Thor Oh, sure thing :)

@Randal'Thor Which tag, the one that exists or the one I suggested?

tbh norse-mythology-gaiman wouldn't be a bad idea, either. But Gallifreyan raises a good point; I don't think either subject will have very many questions.

@Randal'Thor Interesting. I'll take a look at those links; thanks for the info

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet That doesn't matter. If someone comes to this site looking for questions on Norse mythology, at any time, I want them to find exactly that by searching the norse-mythology tag, not just questions about one particular book by some popular modern writer who'll probably be forgotten in 100 years.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Hm. You raise a good point.

Feeds

How could ancient Aztec pictures be used as evidence in court? Find out here: https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/2584/17?stw=2

Tweeted by StackLiterature on June 19, 2017 at 5:51 PM

Shokhet

@Feeds Who was that? Wasn't me...

Oh, it was Rand.

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet I reopened the Twitter control room.

Shokhet

6:21 PM

@Randal'Thor I see that.

I scheduled three tweets for today (morning, afternoon, and evening). Maybe I'll move the third over to tomorrow or the next day.

Rand al'Thor

Oh! Sorry to interrupt your schedule :-)

I just noticed the Twitter feed was pretty dead recently, and decided to help liven it up again.

Shokhet

No, not a problem! The more that other people are involved in running this thing, the less work there is for me

Last time I created a schedule I posted it in chat, I didn't do that this time. You had no way of knowing what was coming

@Randal'Thor And that's great :D

If you could, @Randal'Thor, please delete the Feeds messages from the control room? We don't want those to be tweeted by accident. Thanks :)

(Or make me a mod, so I can do that myself. Either option works for me :P)

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor But do we want a tag for Norse mythology in general? That was my rationale in approving the [norse-mythology] tag.

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet Ah, good point. Done.

@Gallifreyan Whyever not?

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Thank you.

Mithrandir

6:25 PM

@Shokhet get the site to graduate, and I'll vote for you ;)

Shokhet

@Mithrandir Sounds like a plan :)

Some of our stats "need work;" I don't think we'll graduate for a while yet.

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Seems too meta. We have [myths], and we can create [gylfaginning] and the likes if necessary,

Mithrandir

I still have to ask a couple questions. I'll try to get one of them out tonight.

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet Fortunately, the only important stat for graduation is questions per day. Unfortunately, that's one of those which "needs work".

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Right.

Rand al'Thor

6:27 PM

And dammit, our views have slipped back down to "needs work" too. Maybe today's HNQ will help with that.

Mithrandir

I may have sort of mentioned it in a meta post...

2

Q: All text on Android.SE and its meta are showing up grayed out

Basically all text on Android.SE and its child meta are showing up as gray when I use Google Chrome, but it appears fine on Firefox. Chrome: An answer: Main page: Meta: Firefox: Main: Meta: I'm using Ubuntu.

bug design

Rand al'Thor

:-D

Mithrandir

It shows up twice in screenshots ;)

Rand al'Thor

Nice one.

Shokhet

I'm still working on my summer schedule (AAAAAAAAH!), but I'm going to try to post more questions; hopefully at least one per day. (Asking many new questions involves a lot of reading though...I usually can't ask a good question about a work I haven't read recently, with few exceptions like, ironically, my top Lit question)

Gallifreyan

6:31 PM

@Shokhet wut?

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan Basically, I want to help raising the questions per day by attempting to ask at least one QPD.

Need to see if I have time for that....then I went off on a tangent about how, for me at least, asking good questions here takes a lot of time.

Gallifreyan

You didn't read Watchmen?

Shokhet

It's somewhat ironic that although I usually need to read or reread something (recently, meaning the past few weeks) to ask a good question about it, my top-voted question here was not about a work that I had read in the past few years.

@Gallifreyan I did read it; just not within the past (counting...) ~~four years? Five?~~ actually, probably three years.

Whatever it was. A long time ago.

Gallifreyan

that reminds me that I have to carry my answer from here to SFF, for a related question.

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet Great! :-D That's been my aim too, but I've slacked off a bit in the last month or two due to having less time for SE.

Shokhet

6:36 PM

@Randal'Thor IINM, you were my inspiration to ask one QPD :P

Rand al'Thor

International Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing?

Ah, If I'm Not Mistaken. That makes more sense.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor "What does IDK stand for?" "I don't know." "So then why'd you say that?"

...acronyms in general (and IDK in particular) are the new "Who's on first?"

I'd recommend reposting on Mythology. (There are some experts over there with greatly superior knowledge to my own regarding the Norse canon.) Gaiman is well regarded on Mythology, and this question seems more mythological than strictly literary. That said, it's quite common across different pantheons that deities represent different human qualities, Aphrodite for desire as opposed to Athena for wisdom. — DukeZhou 12 mins ago

But again, I'd direct you to mythology because there is certainly a linguistic element: Vili is said to mean "will" in Old Norse, and Ve is a word for shrine (a type of enclosure that could can be an analogy for the body housing the spirit.) But I'm getting this translations from Wikipedia, whereas on Mythology, there are contributors with a strong command of Old Norse. — DukeZhou 9 mins ago

Rand al'Thor

9

Q: Conversation between Obama and Netanyahu

I took a contest entry written by Seth Brown of Williamstown, MA in 2003, and I converted it into this puzzle. Disclaimer: Events described in this puzzle are fictional. A White House stenographer transcribed the following conversation between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama: W...

enigmatic-puzzle

Shokhet

...I know different sites have different policies; what is Lit's (and Myth's, I guess) policy on cross-posting?

@Randal'Thor Cute :)

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet No, cross-posting is one of the things where there's a single SE-wide policy.

(Which makes sense, because what if you wanted to cross-post on two sites with different policies?)

Shokhet

6:42 PM

I know Mi Yodeya's policy: judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1250/5323 ...IIRC LH has one also, because those were the two sites that I tried using. Both were permissive if there is reason to believe that one will expose the questions to readers with differing expertise.

Mithrandir

@Shokhet that appears to be what Latin.SE's policy is as well.

Shokhet

This was the question I asked, and this is the cross-post. I found MY's policy, but I couldn't find LH's.

@Mithrandir It's a policy that, I think, makes sense. I just don't want to step on anyone's toes with my first Mythology post.

Mithrandir

@Shokhet ah, that makes me think of this video:

Ari Goldwag - Chanukah Light [Official Video] (Hanukkah Light) ארי גולדוואג - אור חנוכה

►

Shokhet

Something like what Ari Goldwag does in this video? — Scimonster Dec 21 '14 at 12:56

:)

Mithrandir

:P

Shokhet

6:52 PM

Once we're sharing YouTube music, @Mithrandir, I saw this yesterday and thought of you. (Play through to the end; they sing Hallelujah as well)

@Randal'Thor What is that policy?

Mithrandir

@Shokhet cc @humn for a YouTube battle ;)

Shokhet

I'm sure you know that the "Who's on first?" routine is older than that, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg

@Shokhet ...watching this now. I didn't believe it was possible to laugh at this anymore, but am pleasantly surprised :) :)

Mithrandir

@Shokhet perhaps ironically, I watched it on my phone :)

/afk

Shokhet

7:09 PM

@Mithrandir But not on Shabbat, right? :P

Mithrandir

@Shokhet right. It's Monday :P

Shokhet

@Mithrandir Well, I dunno. You're in a different timezone and everything... :P

Mithrandir

(bleh, Tim lost his keys again)

Mithrandir

7:28 PM

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir That's battered.

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan it's secondhand.

You'd freak out if you saw my copy of The Sorcerer's Stone. It didn't survive the fourth sibling...

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir I'm freaking out right now because you called it Sorcerer's Stone.

Shokhet

@Mithrandir Surprised it got that far. My family's copy of Eragon did not survive three...

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan if I get a new copy I'll try to get Philosopher's :P

@Shokhet which series is that again?

Shokhet

7:33 PM

@Mithrandir Most people call it Eragon, actually, but it's technically called The Inheritance Cycle: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_Cycle

Mithrandir

Ah, yes. Another one for the list.

Shokhet

@Mithrandir Philosopher's Stone and not אבן החכמים?? :P

@Mithrandir Yes, do read those :)

Mithrandir

Shokhet

:)

Mithrandir

8:07 PM

Wow, that got some quick votes. Two votes in two minutes o_o

Shokhet

@Mithrandir I asked my brother, who probably knows Raven Gate better than I do, what he thought.

If you don't get an answer in the next few days, I'll be home later in the week; I'll see if I can find my copy and maybe use what my brother said to write an answer.

Mithrandir

Disclaimer: I've only read Raven's Gate and Ark Angel from those series, so I don't claim expertise in the series' :P

@Shokhet sounds great, thanks!

Shokhet

:)

@Mithrandir Yeah, Alex Rider is one of those series that you can comfortably read the books out of order. I think I did that (but I think I read all of them, at one point or another)

Gallifreyan

I'm surprised no one voted on my answer to the Crime and Punishment question.

Or rather I'm surprised no one commented.

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan I hadn't seen it. Honestly, I was a little confused about what that question was asking, so I've been kinda ignoring it.

@Gallifreyan Your answer looks okay, I guess; what kind of comments were you expecting?

Bookworm

8:22 PM

2

Q: What makes Alex Rider and Matthew Freeman so different?

At the end of my copy of Raven's Gate, there's a Q&A with Anthony Horowitz, the author. One of the questions is: Q: Is it difficult to write both Alex Rider and The Gatekeepers at the same time? What do you think the series have in common, and what's different? A: I can't write Alex Ride...

anthony-horowitz alex-rider the-gatekeepers

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet At least one comment telling me to go to exile for posting an answer about a book I haven't read. Another comment to provide sources. Third comment from OP thanking me for help. Fourth comment from DVK adding some cultural background.

Though I remember DVK saying he wasn't a fan of Russian classics.

Mithrandir

TIL I've offered over 1,000 rep in bounties on SE.

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan Oh, I've posted answers about books I haven't read. That's fine, as long as you're reasonably certain about the language you're reading the book in. (I did something similar for an ESL reader, here). You're fine with sources, I think, if you're a native speaker (but a dictionary link might not be a bad idea). OP looks like he's been around the block on SE before, so he might know about thank-you comments.

And I can't explain DVK's silence :P

Mithrandir

DVK has been silent for a while, AFAICT.

Gallifreyan

He just accepted an answer of mine the other day.

Rand al'Thor

10:35 PM

@Shokhet The policy is "don't do it".

2

(Ironically, I first discovered this when a CM rather brusquely told me, "you've been on SE long enough to know not to cross-post" - which I hadn't known up until that point! :-P [That was before I was a mod.])

BESW

Reading Anne Frank in #Iran: 'A prison can be as small as six cramped rooms..or as big as a country' http://www.elixir-journal.org/issue3/voices_iran1.php #humanrights

Tweeted by BahaiBIC on June 19, 2017 at 6:24 PM

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet I do now, but I didn't when I first saw that puzzle on PSE.

(Which makes the comments on the question look a little odder, as the guy above me knew what it was a reference to but I assumed he was just appreciating the puzzle.)

@Shokhet My five-second review of the Inheritance Cycle: some great ideas and thought-provoking writing, but a depressing lack of originality. (I once wrote an answer cataloguing all the other stories from which Paolini ripped off ideas. It took a long time.)

Um, @Hamlet? Why did you roll back the OP's clarifying edit to their own question?

I'm tempted to rollback to revision 2. Even your last changes would have been immediately rejected as "no improvement whatsoever" if they'd been a suggested edit.

BESW

10:56 PM

Legends collide this fall in a Wonder Woman/Conan crossover from @GailSimone and @aaronlopresti!… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/876922585358913536

Tweeted by DarkHorseComics on June 19, 2017 at 10:00 PM

Napoleon Wilson

11:16 PM

@Randal'Thor Well, make sure you still remove the unnecessary chatter after rolling back, though.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Why? Does it harm anyone?

Like I say, "no improvement whatsoever". If there's something else to fix in the post, then sure, remove the "thanks" while you're in there. Editing just to remove a "thanks" feels ... unnecessary.

user15026

@Randal'Thor Does it hurt anyone if you remove it to make a cleaner question?

Napoleon Wilson

It does. It harms the clarity of the question and goes straight against SE's "this isn't a conversation, it's a question" policy.

@Randal'Thor Removing "Thank You" is always an improvement, and noticably so. Rejecting as "no improvement whatsoever" is genuinely a wrong thing to do there.

user15026

Agreed

Rand al'Thor

goes to flood M&TV and Arqade front pages with edits by removing "thanks"s by the thousand :-P

Napoleon Wilson

11:21 PM

Ain't nobody got time for politecy-business on SE. Been that since the beginning of time really.

user15026

@Randal'Thor ....okay then?

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Help yourself. Thank you. ;-)

You can totally take the ones I missed till now. ;-)

user15026

Thank you for taking a bunch of time to make the site tidier!

user15026

(I'm not sure what other reaction would be appropriate to that statement, or what your intended response was)

Napoleon Wilson

On a well-maintained site you shouldn't find too many of those anyway. So this might be a good idea to check how well the community did its job. Looking forward to it.

Rand al'Thor

11:22 PM

@NapoleonWilson A bit of niceness never goes amiss. Like I say, does it harm anyone? Who says "oh no, reading 1-2 extra words at the end of the question, ain't nobody got time for that, I won't bother answering this"?

Napoleon Wilson

That's...how it starts.

Next you got conversations in questions, which...this pretty much is.

user15026

@Randal'Thor Just because it doesn't kick my puppy doesn't mean it's not a weed in my garden

user15026

Some weeds look nice but are still weeds that will eventually choke out plants if left to thrive

Rand al'Thor

More importantly, though, letting it be known that a tiny thing like removing "thanks" is a useful edit is a great way to encourage people to do tons of useless edits for badges.

Useless edits really bug me sometimes.

user15026

I don't think that is as common a practice as everyone seems to flutter about it being

Rand al'Thor

11:25 PM

We had that problem already on this site, with Benjamin making dozens of edits to get rid of contractions, changing every "isn't" to "is not" and "I'm" to "I am" and so on.

I bloody well rolled the whole lot back.

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Well, discouraging improving edits sure protects from bad edits too, but...

Rand al'Thor

My rule of thumb (to which there are doubtless exceptions) is: if you'd reject it as a suggested edit, consider rolling it back as a higher-rep user's edit.

user15026

There's a difference, I think, between "this is not a style of writing I like" (aka the contractions thing" and "this is literally not a part of the question and if I edit it out nothing of value is lost"

Napoleon Wilson

If you got people doing bullshit for badges, that's a problem for another day. I'd love people to remove "Thank you"'s "just" for badges, though.

It's those small things that deserve some love.

user15026

@NapoleonWilson Honestly, if they do that, I think they can have the badge

user15026

11:27 PM

to me, that's not useless.

user15026

Now, if they're only taking out the thanks and not addressing other issues in the post, that's more of a problem.

user15026

But it is a different problem.

Napoleon Wilson

Seeing a question with zero punctuation or capital letters hanging there with tons of answers is...not a really good feeling. I'd love me some badge-hunters doing "minute" and "unneccessary" fixes more.

user15026

I'd agree with you.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Adding punctuation and capital letters is by no means an unnecessary edit.

Napoleon Wilson

11:29 PM

@Randal'Thor O...kay.

Rand al'Thor

Anything that objectively improves the grammar or presentation of the post, I have no problem with.

Napoleon Wilson

@Ash 'nneed.

user15026

@Randal'Thor Taking the thanks/greeting out does improve the presentation of the post though

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Indeed. And that's what a well-encouraged edit culture protects you from.

One where people don't feel entitled to complain about jerks messing up their posts instead of bloody answering their question.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson It reminds me of people who go around flagging "+1" comments by the zillion. Technically they're helping to improve the site by removing chatter and whatnot, but it's a very low-effort way of earning badges.

Napoleon Wilson

11:32 PM

I fail to see how "Hello"s and "Thank You"s are remotely not unneccessary baggage that pushes a post down and distracts from the matters.

@Randal'Thor Meh, they can totally have those badges. They flagged correctly and I'm not telling them that they did wrong.

Rand al'Thor

I seem to recall hearing a similar anecdote about someone who mass-edited (or mass-flagged?) mild swear words out of hundreds of posts. In theory, they're doing a good service to the site; in practice, get a life!

Napoleon Wilson

They ultimately got those badges for doing the right thing. Me feeling they don't deserve them would be a bigger problem than they having a little too much time at their hands to ultimately help improve the site.

@Randal'Thor That...depends.

user15026

@Randal'Thor Maybe, but like...usually it's one or two people doing stuff like this - if you really don't like it, you pull them aside and be like "hey yo please slow down on this thing"

Napoleon Wilson

Not every swear word is a bad thing.

user15026

Heck the other week we had someone who was doing small edits to a number of posts in rapid succession.

Rand al'Thor

11:35 PM

@NapoleonWilson Yeah, I handle such flags on a case-by-case basis too: if the comment should go, then mark the flag helpful, even if there are 50 more flags right behind it from the same person and they're obviously badge-hunting.

user15026

I was like "hey yo I appreciate this work but you're flooding the front page can you slow your roll" and they were like "okay cool, I can do that"

user15026

and bam, problem solved

Rand al'Thor

Doesn't stop me from complaining, though ;-)

@NapoleonWilson Exactly!

user15026

not everyone is necessarily gaming for badges, they're just sometimes overeager. It's not all doom and gloom.

Napoleon Wilson

At a time we had a user flooding the site with about 50 comment flags each day (if not more). You know what I thought, "Meh, our little site and my tons of spare time can totally deal with that, and they're really helpful flags, keep 'em coming".

Rand al'Thor

11:36 PM

@Ash Oh, you wouldn't believe the number of times I've done that on SFF (and the number of heated meta/chat debates we've had over what constitutes "flooding the front page").

user15026

@Randal'Thor I come from Arqade, I can believe it

user15026

but I still think removing the thanks and things is a good edit

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson You want comment flags? I got your comment flags right here.

Already got a few pending on M&TV ;-)

Napoleon Wilson

And that user wasn't even badge-hunting (nor is my first reflex to accuse them of doing so), but genuinely trying to help (even if out of a dedication that wasn't always super-healthy).

@Randal'Thor You could at least have edited the "Thanks" out. ;-P

user15026

I think that's really my issue, is the jumping to "the system is being abused"

Napoleon Wilson

11:39 PM

Oh, forget, that looks like a straight closed anyway. Thanks for bringing it to attention.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson That's how I found that post - by searching for thanks is:q ;-) And yeah, already VTCed and it doesn't seem worth editing.

Btw, why hasn't this been roomba'ed? 3 years old, closed, no answers ... is the positive score somehow keeping it alive?

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Yes, of course it does.

That's why I have to clean up closed but upvoted ID bullshit manually (which fortunately is rather rare, though).

Rand al'Thor

Did something change in the M&TV close reasons recently?

I'm getting that feeling when you know something looks different but you can't quite work out what.

Or maybe it's just been too long since I last VTCed stuff over there.

Napoleon Wilson

Yes, very recently. It's not too hard to find out, though.

Rand al'Thor

Well, I've now found plenty of "thanks"s in questions on M&TV :-)

But most of 'em are old ID crap that just needs closing.

Like, seriously, how the heck is this still around?

Napoleon Wilson

11:47 PM

As said, help yourself. You're grown up enough to know to keep it below about 15 to 20 at once. Other than that, feel free to help.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor the clarifying edit didn't clarify anything. It just put one word in bold

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Well, because noone took at it yet, that's how.

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Putting that word in bold was a major clarification. When I read that sentence, I didn't see the "not" at first and assumed it had the opposite meaning, then wondered if the "not" should really be there.

Napoleon Wilson

I'd agree with that.

Rand al'Thor

I could maybe understand the rollback if it had been someone else making it in the first place. But, frankly, who are you to tell the OP which words to emphasise or not in their question? It's not as if they were vandalising it.

Hamlet

11:50 PM

@Randal'Thor if you roll it back I wont argue.

Napoleon Wilson

Just remember...

34 mins ago, by Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Well, make sure you still remove the unnecessary chatter after rolling back, though.

Hamlet

@humn it hasn't make it yet. We need to recruit new members, we need to establish ourself as a resource, we need to do a lot of things. We haven't "failed", but we haven't succeeded.

Napoleon Wilson

Well, who doesn't, and who ever does?

Rand al'Thor

I wonder why this was downvoted. Haven't read it well enough to vote on it myself yet, but it seems well-written, and from someone who's generally very knowledgeable and writes excellent answers here.

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