The Library

Matthew Miller

1:39 AM

Where did everyone go?

Hey @MonicaCellio

@MonicaCellio how are people posting these SE questions and responses?

On this page

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller hey, sorry -- just walked in. Chat automatically formats certain URLs nicely (it's called "oneboxing"), including questions, answers, Wikipedia pages, and XKCD (just because :-) ). Just paste the URL in a chat message by itself. It can't be with other text, like "hey look at this (URL)", but it can be a reply.

You can get the URL for an answer by clicking on the "share" link under it and cutting/pasting that. You can also do that for questions, or use the regular, verbose URL for the question.

As for where everyone went... well, Caleb's in Turkey so it's about 4AM there I think, and Jack's in the UK so that's 2AM, and Jon's in CA so he's probably eating dinner, and the rest I don't know.

Ray

2:02 AM

And I'm here but I don't have much to say :)

Monica Cellio

@Ray hi! I didn't mean to slight you; I just don't know what timezone you live in. :-)

Ray

No problem... I'm never sure either.

I'm in Eastern Time--near Philly

Monica Cellio

@Ray I'm glad to see you around the site more (including here), even if you don't say much. I don't know if you were lurking really quietly or were away or what (not prying), but it looks like something's changed recently and I'm glad.

Ray

How about yourself?

Monica Cellio

Pittsburgh, just a few hours away from you.

Ray

2:09 AM

@MonicaCellio A bit of lurking, a bit of overbooking of projects, and a bit of having a new baby

Monica Cellio

@Ray oh, congratulations on that last! Your first, or do you have others?

Ray

Yes, it is the first. We're super thrilled and love her to pieces.

Thanks for being gracious about it; I realize I've not quite been pulling my weight

Monica Cellio

@Ray it sounds like exciting times! What's her name?

Ray

@MonicaCellio Thanks--We named her Ivy Jane

Matthew Miller

@ray and @MonicaCellio what do you guys do for a living?

Ray

2:11 AM

Jane after my grandmother, and Ivy because I like the name

@MatthewMiller I'm an applications developer

Monica Cellio

@Ray I thought you had gone inactive, and I'm glad to see that's not the case. (I'm a pro-tem on another site with an inactive mod, so I know they don't always change status when that happens, which helped to confuse me here I suspect.)

@Ray that's a pretty name.

Matthew Miller

@ray it seems almost everyone on this site works with computers.

Ray

@MatthewMiller How about yourself?

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller the business card says software developer. I actually do a mix of API design (we have a toolkit product), application programming, technical writing, software-process foo, integration, etc. You?

Matthew Miller

@Ray Corrections deputy

@ray a lot of nuts and butts

Monica Cellio

2:14 AM

@MatthewMiller a non-computer person! We shall now all gawk at you. :-) (Just kidding.) What's a day in your life like?

Ray

@MonicaCellio Well, after I first got the diamond, I did slow my posting a bit as I noticed that I had too much skin in the game to look at things fairly / objectively. But then other things starting piling on, etc.

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio 12 hour days. Right now I'm working 6Pm to 6Am. Our jail has a population of around 500. I work all over the place. Booking, housing etc.

Monica Cellio

@Ray are you one of the original mods, or did you come later?

@MatthewMiller I think you mentioned here earlier that you were currently working graveyard, but I didn't know it was a 12-hour shift. That sounds rough. I mean, I guess you're less busy at 2AM than 2PM, but still...

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio here's one of my jail storis if you're interested

logosmadeflesh.com/2013/02/25/my-brush-with-the-mad-poocasso

Ray

@MonicaCellio I also think I deliberately have a more hands-off modding philosophy than the other mods. I like downvoting over closing, for example, so even when I am on top of things, that sometimes means not doing much noticeably.

Matthew Miller

2:18 AM

@MonicaCellio Depends on where I'm working. But last night I got to do a lot of writing. It was pretty cool.

Ray

@MonicaCellio Yes, original

@MatthewMiller Just starting looking over that... I can already tell it's disgusting

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio :)

Monica Cellio

@Ray one thing I've come to appreciate on other sites, particularly Mi Yodeya, is the effectiveness of commenting. I think comments are important from anyone, but that diamond can provide a little extra boost of clue sometimes.

Matthew Miller

What's a diamond?

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller ewww... but fascinating nonetheless. (Only a few paragraphs in so far.)

@MatthewMiller the symbol that shows up after a moderator's name on the site (you don't see it here in chat, but if you look at any comment or post from Ray, Jon, Jack, or Caleb, you'll see a diamond symbol.)

Matthew Miller

2:21 AM

What's it mean?

Moderator

Ray

@MatthewMiller Until the site is a real site, we're acting as pro-tem moderators. If/when we get full status, the community would vote on full moderators.

Matthew Miller

Who started the site?

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller it means the person is a site moderator, which is sort of a custodian -- the people who handle flags, close/delete things that need it without waiting for the community to vote, enforce the things the community decides are important, etc.

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio ahh

I see its beta. When will it be a full site?

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller the mods on beta sites are appointed by Stack Exchange (the company that owns all these sites). As Ray said, on sites that graduate out of beta, there are elections. I was elected on Mi Yodeya (the Judaism site).

@MatthewMiller when it gets big and strong enough. There's no specific timetable. I think we'll be a while yet; we're growing slowly.

Matthew Miller

2:25 AM

@ray and @MonicaCellio Thanks

Ray

@MatthewMiller All the new sites go start as a proposal on Area 51: area51.stackexchange.com

Matthew Miller

@Ray So how long has stackexchange been around. It seems like a cool concept.

Ray

@MatthewMiller The first site was StackOverflow, which is a programming site. I think that started in 2008

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller I don't know who the driving forces were, but one set of early users is the people who participated in the private beta (the first week during which a site is "seeded" and not yet open for business). There's a badge for that. So it looks like this site had 17 people who could arguably be called founders. Many aren't around any more, alas.

Matthew Miller

So @ray you're a founder?

Ray

2:28 AM

Yeah, I was among the group

Matthew Miller

@Ray Did you guys break away from another group?

@Ray How long ago?

Ray

@MatthewMiller No, all the sites technically start independently--that said, this one started shortly after the Christianity site started up, and so there was a lot of crossover at first. That may partially explain the Christian bias on the site.

Matthew Miller

@Ray I think including the New Testament adds that bias. I mean if we included the book of Mormon I'd say we'd have a Mormon bias around here.

Ray

@MatthewMiller Looks like 582 days

Sorry guys, gotta run!

Monica Cellio

@Ray there are also way more Christians than others in the world at large. :-)

@Ray take care! See you soon I hope.

Matthew Miller

2:32 AM

@ray see ya.

@MonicaCellio So what made you think of the cave question?

Monica Cellio

(Ok, not more Christians than Muslims probably, but Muslims don't seem to care about the bible so much, so they're not going to congregate here.)

@MatthewMiller I was reading the other Ephron question (how I got there, I forget now), and it reminded me that my question had come up when we studied the passage in my torah-study group a while back, and beyond "that's a lot of money" I never got a sense of it. So I figured, hey, we have a history tag, and people who might know, so...

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio Actually there's about a billion Christians than Muslims. At least there were when I researched it in the late 90's that's probably changed some in the last 10 years.

Monica Cellio

(And thanks for noticing the question. I asked it and got no response for a while -- crickets, I thought. I wondered if it was really that boring or what.)

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio Why did you think Abraham spent so much money on it?

@MonicaCellio No, it's an interesting question. I just don't know where to find the answer.

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller you mean why did he just accept the ludicrous price without bargaining? Or why that particular plot of land, or why worry so much about a grave?

@MatthewMiller oh ok. Nobody's voted, which was part of why I thought it wasn't interesting.

(Not whining nor asking, to be clear.)

Matthew Miller

2:36 AM

@MonicaCellio I'd have to go back and read the story but did Abraham offer that money or was that the price that was demanded?

@MonicaCellio Just read it.

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller one way to read it is as a pretty over-the-top "no, after you" sort of exchange. Avraham asks to buy it, Efron says "no I'll give it to you", Avraham pushes, Efron says "why let the trifling matter of 400 shekels stand between us?" (ha! trifling matter, not!), and Avraham immediately pays him.

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio I never knew it was overpriced. I'm really curious now.

Monica Cellio

So why go along with that instead of haggling? Maybe to demonstrate the importance of burying your dead promptly. Maybe to establish beyond any shadow of a doubt the claim on that land (for all his descendents too). Maybe to "be the better man" because he could apparently afford it.

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio My bet is on the second answer.

@MonicaCellio no one can say Abraham didn't truly own that portion of land

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller I've heard, without sources, that the typical wage in "biblical times" (which covers a lot of time) was measured in single digits of shekels per month, or thereabouts. Other data points we have are some specific fines that are laid out (I think 50 shekels shows up somewhere?), and the half-shekel head-tax.

@MatthewMiller I think that's an important piece of it, yes.

Matthew Miller

2:41 AM

@MonicaCellio Or that someone other than God gave him the land

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller God gives; from anyone else, you have to buy. :-)

But since it all comes from God originally anyway...

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio but it also seems to demonstrate that Abraham was taken advantage of as an alien and a stranger in the land of Cana.

@MonicaCellio Kind of. I guess not because they did offer to give him the land

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller another reason to pay even if he could have held Efron to the gift: to avoid establishing a debt, Avraham "owing him one" in the future. They're even now.

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio Very true. Good point.

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller I kind of wonder if Efron was stunned when he pulled out his wallet. Wait, you're not going to bargain from my ridiculous starting point?

Matthew Miller

2:45 AM

@MonicaCellio Yes! The high price was a way to get Abraham to agree to his terms, his gift.

@MonicaCellio To make Abraham beholden

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller yup. And it didn't work. :-)

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio I love this!

I love learning something new

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller you could always ask a question around this if you like. I've given you my thoughts, some of which are backed by commentaries (that we could look up), but there are probably other interpretations too. Why limit it to the two of us?

@MatthewMiller me too!

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio Why haven't you asked the question

@MonicaCellio Why did you limit it to the amount he was overcharged?

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller didn't occur to me before now.

Matthew Miller

2:49 AM

@MonicaCellio I think it's a much better question. Just site a source saying he was overcharged.

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller sorry, didn't follow that. You mean why did I ask my question the way I did? Just trying to throw out some possibilities, really.

@MatthewMiller so it could reasonably follow from my question, once somebody answers. :-) Or, yeah, find a source (can't do that tonight; have to drop off in a few minutes).

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio no, I understand what you were asking. I just think the question of why Abraham was overcharged when Efron offered to give it to him for free is a more dynamic question.

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller yeah, I think you're right. They're two separate questions: (a) how badly was he overcharged, and (b) why did he pay such an outrageous sum? But the latter is more interesting.

If you want to ask it go ahead. If you don't, I expect I will.

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio You were saying something the other night about exploring the reason God created. What are your thoughts on that?

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller sorry, that's a bigger question than I have time for tonight. :-)

Gotta finish some stuff up tonight before bed.

Matthew Miller

2:53 AM

@MonicaCellio Have you ever asked yourself why God made an Idol?

The image of God

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller I don't think God made idols. God made people and imbued us with free will, and people make idols. Free will can do good or ill, usually a mix.

G'night! TTYL.

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio Good night.

Matthew Miller

4:53 AM

Anybody around?

Jack Douglas

8:43 AM

@MatthewMiller Hi, I'm up now, how's things?

Jack Douglas

11:28 AM

582

Biblical Hermeneutics – hermeneutics.stackexchange.com

Beta Q&A site for professors, theologians, and those interested in exegetical analysis of biblical texts.

Currently in public beta.

I'm delighted to announce we no have 100 users with 200+ rep!

@Matthew you were either the 99th or the 100th, it's a bit hard to tell :)

50 more and we get another green light on Area 51

Dan O'Day

2:14 PM

sorry all for being scarce. I've been learning Django haha

Monica Cellio

@DanO'Day welcome back! And good luck with that. (No experience myself, just to clarify. I've heard of Django but that's all.)

Dan O'Day

2:30 PM

@MonicaCellio I have a love/hate relationship with Django right now

but I won't lie, it probably will save me a ton of time in the long run

Monica Cellio

@DanO'Day "the long run" -- the source of much short-term frustration. :-)

Dan O'Day

@MonicaCellio haha yes

@MonicaCellio part of it is that I can pretty well write database queries to do whatever I want, but not I am interacting with the data through models (objects) that access the database for me

it is actually nice (especially since it handle many-to-many relationships without me having to even create a linking table), but a little confusing how to work with it

Monica Cellio

@DanO'Day heh. I'm working on an API for our system now to allow people to access data via an abstraction layer. The tension between "just give me direct access to the record already" and "make this comprehensible to people who aren't already DB-heads" is challenging.

Dan O'Day

@MonicaCellio yeah that's the problem, I'm working with folks who are not db people

@MonicaCellio and my insistence on proper data warehousing (star/olap) has them miffed

Now we're talking about @JackDouglas 's expertise haha

Monica Cellio

@DanO'Day yeah, you should get his input on this. :-)

Dan O'Day

2:48 PM

@MonicaCellio meh i don't feel like floating over to dba.se

:P

just got private beta invite to opendata.se today

playing around there

asked a meta question already haha

Monica Cellio

@DanO'Day off to a great start! opendata.se is...?)

Dan O'Day

@MonicaCellio Open Data. in private beta now. deals with... open data haha

Monica Cellio

@DanO'Day I'm not familiar with the term. Open data formats, some notion of a great open data store that anyone can access (like open source), something about big data? (I'm sorry if my earlier comment about my API work misled you. I'm not actually working with an RDBMS or the like; we have layers and layers of Java code between our data store and our API. I'm working up there.)

Dan O'Day

@MonicaCellio that's part of the problem - still working on a definition. We're working with this so far

Monica Cellio

3:08 PM

@DanO'Day interesting, thanks. So are questions about managing/publishing/storing such data sets likely to be within scope? (A while back I worked with some folks who were trying to build "the great repository in the sky" (GRIS) along those lines. I don't know whatever happened to that; it would obviously have to be massively distributed, and good luck getting everybody to agree on interfaces. But the industry has probably matured since then.)

Dan O'Day

@MonicaCellio so far it seems to be a bunch of "where do I find [this kind of] data?" questions

Monica Cellio

@DanO'Day ah -- building a global index. That's important.

Monica Cellio

3:28 PM

Hey @JackDouglas (since you edited the post) -- does this answer follow SE's rules about quoting/citing? It's attributed but doesn't say where it comes from, and it seems to be a cut/paste of a whole article.

Jack Douglas

@MonicaCellio I'm just heading out the door, but want to say I discussed this with @Ray earlier, he might be around

do SE have any rules?

Jon Ericson

@MonicaCellio Two answers that largely seem to be copy-n-paste. (I think.)

Jack Douglas

be back later…

Monica Cellio

@JackDouglas I think the terms of use have something to say on the matter. I don't have them handy.

Ray

@MonicaCellio Monica, yes Jack and I discussed a little this morning. I was planning to ask on Meta about it, but I'm at work now so I can't at the moment.

Jon Ericson

3:32 PM

@JackDouglas My impression is that it harms the network if too many answers are copied from other sites for SEO reasons. It also isn't very nice nor does it fit with the concept of a Q&A site to just parrot what can be found elsewhere on the internet just as easily.

Monica Cellio

@JonEricson yeah, true. The other one at least has a link. On Mi Yodeya we have an "excerpt/summarize, don't do wholesale paste" rule (which, ironically, we were just discussing with a user within the last hour), but that's us, not global.

@Ray sounds good, thanks. Clarifying our guidelines here would be good.

Ray

Briefly, though, my initial thought was that I would have deleted the answer but since she's new, I thought maybe we should start with a warning. I mentioned it to Jack, and he said he wasn't sure we had a prohibition against quote-only answers, assuming they're properly attributed. At best, I think it's a poor quality answer, and shows no effort on the user's part of really interacting with the question.

Monica Cellio

For reference, here's the Mi Yodeya policy:

6

A: How should I cite an answer elsewhere?

The community has generally accepted this as site policy on Mi Yodeya: "One who says something in the name of its speaker brings redemption to the world" (Avot 6:6). Frequently, an answer to a question on this site, or information that can contribute to an answer, is available verbatim on...

Jon Ericson

@MonicaCellio One place it can have value is if it makes an off-line only, non-English, or difficult to find resource available to the general public. I like the way a question on Mi Yodeya can bubble up some rabbinical source I could never have found for those reasons.

But it's pretty discouraging to get a copy of a blog post as an answer.

Ray

I would be in favor of something similar to what you describe, Monica. If we can establish that, I think that has value in the "what do we expect from an answer" guideline as well.

Monica Cellio

3:37 PM

@JonEricson yeah, online and offline seem like they should have different thresholds (so long as the latter doesn't pose copyright problems). For online, I want to see a summary and a link; don't repeat what I can just go read myself. But the summary is important; don't go overboard in the other direction and just post a link either. Make it a meaningful answer, not just a pointer.

Ray

My question is, what do you do with a quote-only answer? Delete or downvote?

Monica Cellio

@Ray on Mi Yodeya we edit it down if we can, delete pending author edit if we can't.

Jon Ericson

@Ray Congratulations! My world has been rocked (mostly in good ways) by twins, so I can definitely understand taking it slow on the site. It's been interesting to see you work as a "silent partner", but I'm glad you have come back to being more active again.

Monica Cellio

(For a fresh case, see the revision history here and today's chat transcript from Bam for more details.)

Ray

@JonEricson Thanks, Jon, and to you as well! It's terrific if slightly terrifying.

Monica Cellio

3:53 PM

This answer doesn't seem to actually answer the question. It seems more like a sermon. (Not a new answer.)

Ray

4:07 PM

@MonicaCellio and @JonEricson, regarding quote-only answers... Could a "insufficient explanation" post notice be applicable?

Monica Cellio

@Ray I'm not sure. Some of them probably do provide lots of explanation -- just not the answerer's explanation. I don't have the wording of that annotation handy; would that be confusing?

Ray

@MonicaCellio "We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer: please explain why you're recommending it as a solution. Answers that don't explain anything will be deleted. See Good Subjective, Bad Subjective for more information."

@MonicaCellio You're probably right. That could be confusing, especially to a new user.

Monica Cellio

@Ray the "please explain why" part of that is relevant, but in a lot of these cut/paste cases, "don't just give a one-line answer" really isn't the problem. :-) We need something that's more about original content vs. quotage, and I don't think we have that.

Ray

4:24 PM

Don't know if you saw this, but another user gave another (nearly) quote-only answer to that same question

Jack Douglas

4:58 PM

@MonicaCellio My thought is that we need a meta post we can use to point people at, and also so we can decide whether to delete or not. Copyright is another issue again, but I think the general SE stance on that is that it is not 'our' problem (ie it's between the poster and the copyright holder)

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio So we don't want quote-only answer. oops. I just up voted one and checked it as the acceptable answer.

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller That's as yet undecided

we just don't have a policy on it yet

I'm personally OK with them

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas I do agree that original content or summaries of others arguments would be better

Jack Douglas

thinking about this from an entirely different angle, I wonder if we can use post like this as an excuse to evangelise the site

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas How so?

Jack Douglas

5:02 PM

how about we contact the original author asking for their thoughts—if they object they may be inclined to join the site and post under their own name (at which point we can just delete the other answer)

I'm especially keen on this for an upvoted accepted answer like Ann's: it indicates that the author would be useful on the site

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas Absolutely!

Jack Douglas

William Flippin, Jr.

@pastorbilljr

72 tweets, 122 followers, following 73 users

this is the man ^^^^^^

Matthew Miller

You made short work of that

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller :) the link was at the bottom of the article in The Huffington Post

(which I added to the answer a moment ago, but I found it earlier on today)

Matthew Miller

Ahh. I didn't see that

Jack Douglas

5:07 PM

I'm not on Twitter and I don't even know how it works: can we message someone via Twitter?

Matthew Miller

I can.

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller yippee :)

Matthew Miller

Doing it now.

Jack Douglas

do post a link when you are done, won't you?

Matthew Miller

sure

What do you mean by a link?

Jack Douglas

5:15 PM

@MatthewMiller I just wanted to see what you wrote :)

looks great, good idea to include a direct link

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas had a question that's off topic

I keep posting answers on old questions where an answer has already been accepted.

It seems pointless to me to accept an answer since the community more or less decides which answer is better than another

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller accepting an answer doesn't mean that much

but also, the OP will get notified when you post a new answer, and they can change which answer they have accepted at any time

further reading:

7

A: Should I answer a very old question that already has an accepted answer if I have something to contribute?

Behold, the Decision-Making Filter™: If you think that your answer can help others as a solution to the problem, absolutely you should answer. One of the goals of Stack Overflow is to create an encyclopedia-like depository of information, that can be updated as things change. If you don't reall...

3

Q: Can we remove the preferential sorting of accepted answers?

On Stack Overflow, the "accepted" answer shows that the loop has been closed and the question has been answered to the satisfaction of the asker. That's true here too. But there's a big difference between accepting an answer on a practical and specific question as opposed to a general and broad...

38

Q: Can we exempt downvoted accepted answers from getting the top spot?

Similar to this request but narrower, I'm suggesting we make a particular exception for downvoted accepted answers (those with score less than zero, or some other threshold like -3), so that they stay in the normal sort order and don't jump to the top. The accepted answer on this question on bh....

feature-request down-votes accepted-answer

not sure how much of that is relevant :)

Matthew Miller

Thanks.

I guess I'm a bit frustrated with my answer here hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/1867/… not getting the attention that I think it deserves. I hope that doesn't sound petty.

I know its not about me. But the answer that's been accepted and voted up 9 times is clearly reading too much into the text.

Or I should say reading things that don't appear to be in the text.

I've seen a few more people up vote it since I've written what I think is a more faithful reading and I can't help think that people might simply be up voting the selected answer and the one with more votes as if it has been selected over mine. The question been pretty much dead for over a year.

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller it is harder getting attention on older questions, and there are various ways of doing that

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas How so?

Jack Douglas

5:29 PM

you are welcome to post it in here and ask: best to do so when there are a few folk in the room (you can see on the top right)

6 is quite full for us btw!

if you post the link on its own, it will expand like the links I posted above

Matthew Miller

Like this

2

A: Why did Stephen give such a long speech?

Stephen's long and meandering history may not appear to have a point, let alone answer the charges leveled against him. But Stephen is indeed addressing these charges: “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Na...

Ahh. Got it

Jack Douglas

exactly. Great answer by the way, +1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^

Matthew Miller

How do you find the url to your specific answer

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller the 'share' link

Matthew Miller

?

Jack Douglas

5:31 PM

under the answer. I switched them :)

if you refresh you'll see

sorry, saying two unrelated things there at the same time

Matthew Miller

Ok

Jack Douglas

a) the 'share' link is just under your answer, and b) I edited your comment above to link to your answer (you may need to refresh to see that)

Matthew Miller

There it is

Jack Douglas

then there are bounties

Matthew Miller

How do they work?

Jack Douglas

5:34 PM

155

A: How does the bounty system work?

Sources: the official FAQ and blog posts. See also the official privileges page for bounties. What is a bounty? A bounty is a special reputation award given to answers. This feature was designed to motivate answerers, and help questions get the answers they deserve. Bounty awards are ...

Matthew Miller

Thanks. Where are you finding all these answers?

Jack Douglas

I've just added one to the question, can you see it?

Matthew Miller

It's seems like the bounty though is for a question not for an answer that has been overlooked.

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller meta.stackoverflow.com is the site for questions about the network. We actually have our own 'meta' site too: meta.hermeneutics.stackexchange.com

Monica Cellio

@MatthewMiller no, as Jack said, we don't have a policy. I was raising the question (IIRC, originally in the context of a not-fully-cited quote, where the citation thing is also an issue). We need to figure this out. (Now catching up on backread.)

Jack Douglas

5:36 PM

@MatthewMiller bounties do draw attention to the question as a whole, but when it is awarded, it goes to a specific answer

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas But if the answer has already been accepted how does the bounty work then?

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller votes and 'accepted answer' and bounties are orthogonal

(ie independent)

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas So the person that offers the bounty gets to select who gets the bounty?

Jack Douglas

though the bounty could lead to more votes which could lead to the OP changing the accepted answer. none of that is guaranteed of course

@MatthewMiller yes, exactly

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas Got it

Jack Douglas

5:39 PM

usually bounties are awarded by users who already have a lot of 'rep', either to try and improve the site or to play the game of getting badges

Matthew Miller

How would badges factor?

Jack Douglas

Jon and Soldarnal have certainly awarded a few, among others

Matthew Miller

Sorry for all the questions

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller not at all. it's great you are interested, we are delighted :)

Matthew Miller

I'm a bit of a gamer without a game system. That's why I'm very much intrigued by the stackexchange system

It combines my two interests. :)

Jack Douglas

5:41 PM

personally I don't really notice badges but for some people they are really important for motivation, the same goes for votes and rep. yes, the 'game' thing!

you already have 9 badges

Matthew Miller

Not many games for hermeneutics around.

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller indeed, it's mostly quite highbrow

there are lots of other badges

some are very hard to get

Matthew Miller

Yep. I know about the badges. I was just wondering how a bounty might play in.

Again thanks for all the info.

Jack Douglas

hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/badges/48/altruist

hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/badges/47/benefactor

hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/badges/45/investor

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas That explains it. There are badges that are directly related to bounties.

Jack Douglas

5:45 PM

hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/badges/46/promoter

yes, only that

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas So you live in England. What do you do for a living?

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller I'm an IT bod (databases mainly, particularly Oracle)

I see from your profile you have four children too

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas Yep. Busy man. There in school right now. How did you become interested hermeneutics?

Jack Douglas

ours are from 3-9, my wife Emily home-schools them full-time, I try and work part-time to help (but it doesn't always work out like that)

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas What I like about BH.SE is that everyone around here is more or less working somewhere outside this field.

@JackDouglas How many do you have?

Jack Douglas

5:50 PM

@MatthewMiller I know what you mean, but it isn't exactly what we are aiming at: we'd love to have all the professors on the site!

(those that know how to use a PC that is!)

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas My oldest and youngest are girls. The boys are in between

Jack Douglas

@MatthewMiller also 4, boy-girl-boy-girl

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas Even. Same with me.

Jack Douglas

they split naturally into two groups for schooling as the girls seem to learn quicker at this stage :)

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas My oldest is 13 and my youngest is 5.

Jack Douglas

5:52 PM

@MatthewMiller I'm just interested in the Bible: I wasn't really much more than passingly familiar with the word 'hermeneutics' until I saw it here, likewise 'exegesis'

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas How long have you been interested? How do you find this site?

Jack Douglas

I hope we can talk some more another time: I need to disappear for the evening now as it is Thursday :)

@MatthewMiller I'll get back to you on that one!

Matthew Miller

@JackDouglas No prob. Have a good night.

@JackDouglas Thanks for offering the bounty by the way. :)

Dan O'Day

holy cow i left and 141 messages happened

Matthew Miller

6:08 PM

@DanO'Day :)

Dan O'Day

@MatthewMiller don't worry it's normal here haha

Matthew Miller

@DanO'Day So what's your story? Who are you and how did you come to be associated with this site?

@DanO'Day Chicagoland! LOL! Sounds like someone is reading the Drudgereport

Jon Ericson

6:22 PM

4

A: New answers to old questions receiving little attention?

I think this is a subset of the Fastest Gun in the West problem. Only our timescale is months, not seconds. (So we have the Fastest Glacier in the West problem instead.) In a nutshell, the first answer to a question has a slight advantage if it even looks correct. Each subsequent answer will f...

Matthew Miller

@DanO'Day Just posted a comment on your blog. Good stuff!

@JonEricson Good answer. This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Thanks.

Jon Ericson

@MatthewMiller Good deal.

Matthew Miller

@JonEricson I guess random answer order is out of the question due to the way SE works?

Dan O'Day

6:38 PM

@MatthewMiller I am Dan, I'm a g33k, and I was a casual user of SO who found this site thru a Google search and realized SE has a lot more than just programming help

@MatthewMiller just saw the comment

Dan O'Day

6:57 PM

sorry it took me so long to reply

Monica Cellio

The timer on this goes off today. Edit it down to just the answer (removing 90% of it), or just delete? Is the answer, stripped of all the doctrine, valuable? (It has two votes to delete now, one of them mine. But if somebody wants to fix it that's ok too. I don't feel qualified to do so.)

Ray

@MonicaCellio As I see it, the doctrine is the point of the answer. I don't see anything worth keeping without it.

Monica Cellio

@Ray thanks. That was my impression too, but since it's not my doctrine it's entirely possible that I would miss nuggets of "interesting anyway" in there...

And aw man, I had totally forgotten that I have an answer on that question too and my taking aim at another answer might look bad. That's not my intent. I'm a firm believer in evaluating each answer on its own merits regardless of what other answers are present. But it can look self-serving and I didn't mean to do that.

Ray

7:13 PM

No worries. I don't fully agree with your argument, but it's much better argued than the other one!

..which I've deleted

Monica Cellio

@Ray oh, so it turned out Kazark had one of the delete votes. :-)

@Ray thanks. I'm always open to suggestions for improvements (or challenges), if you think my argument or its premises are flawed.

Ray

@MonicaCellio Appreciate the invitation. Though people have different interpretations--that's what this site is about.

Soldarnal

7:32 PM

@MonicaCellio The Committee of Three (Monica, Frank, Sol) has turned into a Gang of Four

Monica Cellio

@Soldarnal my impression is that Kazark doesn't monitor chat discussions nor the delete-votes page. I'm guessing he went there becuase Jack pinged him in a comment. It's great to have his help; I suspect with both him and Mike we'll only get it by specific request like that.

2013-05-12 unclear, unsupported

Ray

@MonicaCellio I've added a post notice

Monica Cellio

@Ray thanks!

At some point we're going to have to decide what to do about old answers that don't meet our standards. I spotted that one because the question popped up (due to an edit on a different answer). There are probably a bunch of these, especially from certain people. I'm fine with handling them as they come up, but do we want to post them all in here, just flag, or what?

(So far I'm defaulting to posting in here. It probably won't get unwieldy.)

Ray

I like this system, but I'd like to hear the thoughts of the other PT mods

Monica Cellio

@Ray I think it was Jon who suggested it. I don't remember Jack or Caleb expressing an opinion (though the timeframe might be Jack's - can't remember).

Ray

7:49 PM

To be honest, I'm generally pretty overwhelmed with the quality of the answers on this site. Compared to a number of other SE sites where people will post the first ridiculous thing that comes into their heads, people on here generally seem very thoughtful and try to wrestle with the text. The overall quality of the site is so high that a few old bad answers aren't really hurting our reputation (IMO)

Monica Cellio

@Ray we have a lot of high-quality answers, yes. I'm certainly not suggesting that we do a systematic sweep with a critical eye. I'm more wondering what we should do when we do come across old answers that don't measure up, particularly from people who aren't around any more (so they're not going to fix them). Treat them the same way we would treat new poor answers too, or should we be more expedient in these cases? I'm not advocating, just asking.

Ray

@MonicaCellio :) I would vote for treating them the same as new poor answers... Perhaps shorten the timeline if the user is no longer active?

Monica Cellio

@Ray For the last two I posted (just now, and tomorrow's), I shortened to 3 days. One user is inactive; the other is active and experienced (and has been told many times what we're looking for in answers). I just picked that number.

Ray

I think that's a good call

Monica Cellio

9:04 PM

2013-05-12: unsupported (user hasn't been back in a year)

^^^ is an answer (moreso that some of the others we've called out); I think if it's annotated we don't necessarily need to do more. Or it could become a comment, now that I think about it. It provides a hint, at least.

Ray

9:16 PM

@MonicaCellio Thanks--I've added the post notice. I think it is an answer, if a thin one. The direction we were given from Shoq9 was that we shouldn't user convert-to-comment as an cop-out for dealing with poor answers. In other words, if it's bad enough to delete, then just delete it. In this case, I don't think it's a non-answer, it's just lacking support.

Monica Cellio

@Ray I agree it's an answer, so deletion would not be appropriate. I hadn't picked up the nuance that converting to a comment is like deletion. Thanks for the clue.

Monica Cellio

9:37 PM

(And I've unpinned that one now, since we've done everything we need to do unless someone comes along and improves it. Unpinning it still leaves a legacy star, so just ignore that.)

Ray

@MonicaCellio Thanks; I'll have to remember my housekeeping :)

Ray

9:54 PM

0

Q: What should we do with quote-only answers?

Previously this meta has addressed the issue of unattributed sources as answers. This answer, however, is a bit of a different issue. What I see going on here is that the user's entire answer is a quote. Though she has given credit to the original author, she's given no summary, no explanation o...

discussion answers

Monica Cellio

@Ray thanks for asking this! (I hope "burn in the flames of our downvotes" is the decoy. :-) )

Ray

I have a terrible poker face

Monica Cellio

:-)

Matthew Miller

@MonicaCellio Just posted the question I was asking you about yesterday.

Monica Cellio

10:18 PM

@MatthewMiller thanks for letting me know. Took a quick look -- interesting question. Need to run off soon, but I plan to propose an answer later.

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