The Factory Floor

@Mourdos if you raise a meta question about it the poking can be shared out among volunteers so you don't have to do all the work yourself...

But I like annoying people :P How is this not evident!?!

room topic changed to Worldbuilders' General Chat: Main chat room for worldbuilding.stackexchange.com [balloon-whales] [bewildered-gods] [reasoned-discussion]

I'll raise a meta.

Now I need a snappy name.

2:02 PM

@githubphagocyte It's so inefficient and inelegant! [false pout]

Accept Answers Tuesday :-)

@BESW yes lol but it makes things run more smoothly so I put up with it...

Every Tuesday, we shall harass those questions with answers over 10 votes that are at least a week old.

There shall be a reckoning!

@Mourdos some questions will never get an accepted answer and that is up to the asker, but I expect there are plenty that simply haven't got round to it yet so the prompts should be handy.

I need a snappier name for the day.

No, Accept Answers Tuesday. (Sorry, my bad for editing :P )

In this case, Thursday.

2:06 PM

@Mourdos strategic editing can be funny. I've wondered whether it's possible to make a linked answer to a future post so that it looks like someone answered a question before it was asked in chat

[answer to question @Mourdos is about to ask]

@githubphagocyte Behold! The power of the edit.

@BESW Are you sure this will work?

@githubphagocyte [question that comes before the answer]

@Mourdos I was outside the 2 minutes so couldn't edit to match your comment...

I remember reading a book, I think it was a Sonic the Hedgehog book, where one of the character was reading the script one line behind, and they pointed it out to him.

2:09 PM

However, anyone can look at the history of a line and see the nature of the edit.

It also contains one of my favorite lines.

@BESW that is beautiful

" I'm going to make you geography! " "You mean history?" "No, I'm gonna make it so yo' mother needs a map to find all of you!"

@Mourdos that reminds me of SpaceBalls

@githubphagocyte This isn't the first room I've been defaulted into ownership of. I know my way around SE chat pretty well.

2:12 PM

@BESW I suppose ideally the reversed answer and question pair would be about time travel...

@githubphagocyte "You can't rewrite history. Not one line!"

"I know. Believe me, I know"

Well, if you come up with a question and answer, please do so.

(The First Doctor, "The Aztecs," in Doctor Who's first attempt to discuss time travel paradoxes.)

Maybe "What would happen if you met yourself coming the other way?"

2:17 PM

To try and think of questions for main, I've jotted down a list of all the possible topics. Nothing's coming to mind though

I think I was a little impulsive with my new tag.

@Mourdos Depends on whether you're Buddha or in the CIA.

(I'm unreasonably fond of Antigonish.)

@BESW I was more talking about an appropriate question to do the whole question in answer and answer in question.

Can we have a meta game where we do that. Answer something with a well thought out but generally applicable and vague answer and ask what the question might be?

Tag it as Riddles :P

That might be depressingly similar to my approach to answering RPG.SE questions about group problems.

@Mourdos I've said something similar before, but I think meta games are best waiting until we're out of private beta and have a bigger community, otherwise we could see a drop in questions on main

2:21 PM

The Oracle isn't posting meta questions. Sadness

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Q: Accept Answer Thursday

We had a nice post a while ago about not accepting answers too early. This is good! Well done. Remember to poke* people who accept too quickly to remind them. However, lets look at the flip side of this. Can we please poke* people who have questions over a week old, with answers that have at lea...

I even made a new tag which I don't think will last long.

> You could be a jerk, but it's just a game. Remember you're playing with friends and don't try to use rules to fix something you should be talking out. If participants aren't willing to meet each other halfway, the group will turn toxic. Link to Same Page Tool. Link to Making the Tough Decisions.

I don't think we are on the same page here @BESW

Oh wait, long chain of comments make sense.

@Mourdos Oh, we are. I'm just saying, I feel like I play that game regularly on the rpg site.

Ah.

You need to just link people to your SE blog.

Does the rule about links as answers apply to links to SE? Presumably, if link goes down, the site is down :-)

( Yes I know archiving and deleting users is possible )

@Mourdos If I had one.

2:26 PM

Now I don't have to close this chat as there isn't a giant picture and I am at work. You make me happy @BESW

@Mourdos Easily fixed, but--not something the chat is going to oblige you on regularly.

I'm aware.

I tend to just leave until the picture leaves the top of the page. Thanks :-)

[bangs head against wall] After this Dresden Files playtest is over, I really need to stop working in established franchise settings.

troubles?

I need a word to describe people who make worlds for RPG purposes

at the moment we have writers and artists

2:36 PM

I'm trying to put together characters for this weekend's RPG session, and I know what role they need to have in the story and I know their role in the established franchise material, but making those things meet is getting really tiresome.

Designers? World Archeticts?

The mouthful is "RPG campaign setting developer/writer."

Its for the "On Topic" meta question. It says WB is for artists and writers

"Setting developer" might work?

Cool

2:38 PM

"Setting developers, including but not limited to artists and writers."

hmm, not so keen on Setting developer

like the bit after the , though

Setting is a bit of a wishy-washy word

It kinda has to be.

Imaginary universe developers, including but not limited to artists and writers working.

meh, still not a fan

We're defining our scope to be as narrow as a town and as wide as a multiverse.

hmm, I can think of valid questions smaller than a town

2:41 PM

Prexactly.

I can even think of valid questions about individuals

So words like "universe" and "world" need to be used with caution.

"Settings" are exactly what we're scoping toward at the moment.

"...people who design and populate ~~imaginary~~ fictional places..."

I like that

Made an update

People who design and populate fictional places. This includes but is not limited to artists and writers.

A: Create the "On-Topic" FAQ Article

2:45 PM

Thought it probably needs refining

2

NOTE: This answer is for the "What Questions Can I Ask Here?" section of the help center. All text from this line on is intended for the article. Worldbuilding.SE is a site for writers, artists and anyone who is developing a setting to get help creating imaginary worlds. This includes geograph...

rpg artists?

I dislike the word artist

It makes me think of visual media

rpg builders?

People who work on RPG campaign setting material are "developers," "designers," and "writers," usually.

That's the parlance of the field.

developers, designers, writers and artists

artists can be involved even from the visual side - to draw something you need to know what it looks like/how it works

2:48 PM

The best "realistic" illustrators for fantasy and scifi make extensive use of maquettes.

@TimB Edited that in

James Gurney's blog is filled with examples.

the language is a bit stilted and choppy at the moment but once the content is sorted I'll go in and smooth it out

looks better already though

I've started asking people to accept answer. I'm using this text at the moment:
Is there an acceptable answer here for you to accept? If not, what else are you looking for in an answer?

thought I dislike the double usage of accept(able)

I'll work on it later

We really need a filter for "questions without accepted answers" or "question with answers that have less than X votes"

I don't think you need the first acceptable

Try, Is there an answer you are willing to accept?

2:59 PM

Perhaps try "Did one of these answers solve your question? If so then consider accepting it so everyone knows, if not then what more are you looking for?"

hmm, last bit sounds a bit passive aggressive

one sec

"Did one of these answers solve your question? If so then consider accepting it so everyone knows, if you still need more detail then is there any more that can be added?"

also, looks like 10 votes on answers is a little high of a bar for some of the question that have fallen off the front page.

Has anyone talked about our logo and stuff?

I think it's too early for that?

yeah, they discuss that with the pro tem mods

and those don't get appointed until a week or two into public beta

I kind of want to see a dragon fighting a spaceship with the background of the fight being a planet with fantasy look fading into a technological futuristic city.

Or maybe archers instead of a dragon.

That, or a whale and a pot of petunias.

lol

3:04 PM

We have a lot of amusing options for our logo

Maniacal white mice laughing and doing an evil plot looking over a backdrop of a half completed planet

I wonder if they support rotating banners

With a tiny minature whale and pot of petunias in the background above the planet.

^

I really hope we don't wind up leaning on an obscure reference to an absurdist cult classic.

2

I think that the half completed planet would be better for meta :P

Awwww.

In that case. A jigsaw of images from differnt concepts

Maybe with a few breaking out of their pieces.

3:07 PM

My own opinions of HGTTG aside (I think it's increasingly sadistic and repetitive as the franchise goes on), we should really try for something a little less in-joke-y.

Balloon Whales = LAWLS comic

One of the occasional characters basically a large whale with a top hat.

I can't find the correct reference at work

3:31 PM

Yeah, trying to find an amusing logo with wide spread appeal will probably be hard but worth it

4:10 PM

@Mourdos Actually, site logo comes with site graduation (out of public beta). Until then we'll very likely get to keep just the "WB".

The Amateur Radio SE is approaching a year into public beta and we don't have any fancy logo there, nor has it been discussed as far as I am aware (being a pro tem moderator there).

Donald.McLean

4:23 PM

@Mourdos It's WAAAYYYYYY too early for that. @MichaelKjörling is correct that the logo isn't created until graduation, and that's probably at least 2 years away.

CodeReview has been in beta for 1344 days and is only now getting a serious look for possible graduation.

Eventually.

2 years until we get snazzy pictures? What a let down :p

@Vulcronos we can already have site specific avatars and put pictures in questions and in answers (on main and on meta)

I will content myself with that then

4:50 PM

It is encouraging to see how quickly votes start coming in on new questions - whether up or down

You are welcome :)

:)

That is a long time.

5:26 PM

How long do meta questions usually take to appear here after posting?

@githubphagocyte I honestly don't know how the feeds import system works, but I'd expect not very long.

@MichaelKjörling elsewhere it's often about 5 minutes, but having waited half an hour I might just post it here myself if that doesn't cause too much clutter?

I have no idea what you all are talking about, just fyi.

Q: Can we ask about how ethics affect a human-built world?

@Vulcronos we now have the chat settings adjusted so that whenever a meta question is posted, it appears as a link in chat

Like this:

0

If humans build a world from scratch, say a colony on another planet, or a generation ship such as in this question, can we ask how their ethics would affect their choices in how to design such a world?

discussion on-topic

Ah.

Thanks for explaning

5:40 PM

I just gave that feed a user account of its own. Let's see if it works better that way.

The feed itself looked like it should work fine.

@MichaelKjörling it had worked for at least some questions earlier today

@githubphagocyte It hasn't for at least 3-4 hours, from the looks of it. I'm not sure what's up with that, honestly, but I figured creating a separate account was an easy thing to try.

If anyone has any feedback on that meta question I'd like to hear it. I'm also not sure if that is the reason for the close vote on my question in main, so any more general feedback would be welcome too.

I'm a little divided on it, actually, but haven't taken any action on it. Don't really feel up to composing a well-thought-out answer at the moment; maybe later, maybe tomorrow if nobody says something I can agree with until then.

@MichaelKjörling do you mean for the meta or main question?

For the main question I am deliberately wading a little deeper into disputed waters to try and see where the boundaries lie - since this extra week is all about deciding what our rules are.

5:47 PM

I just posted an opinion on your meta question.

@Vulcronos interesting points. It almost makes me want to ask a new question on main about what ethics even means - whether it is completely subjective or can have objective themes in common between different worlds and cultures.

I definitely think certain ethical situations can be objective. Such as the value of life or the validity of lying. There is also some ethical systems that attempt to measure and maximize happiness as an example.

6:51 PM

I understand that ethics are difficult to be completely objective about.

Most people feel that their own core ethics are objective, even though different people have different core ethics.

Even the value of life example is subjective as some people consider death an appropriate punishment, whereas others do not.

I've edited my question to hopefully clarify that I want views based on research into ethics internationally in the present day. Although these may be disputed and change over time, I hope that is enough to make the question a sufficiently objective one.

Donald.McLean

7:14 PM

@githubphagocyte I know that some do not have a problem with death as a punishment, but with the difficulty in fairly and justly applying it as a punishment.

Q: Do we need a tag for Earth-like worlds?

@Donald.McLean good point - there are more than one reason for being opposed to capital punishment

Feeds 1352

11:19 PM

1

So we have a lot of variables when we are talking about fantasy worlds. To avoid the OP having to define too much when asking a question and where it is appropriate I'd like to suggest we create/utilize an "earth-like world" tag. This ensures we are answering the question in the framework of th...

discussion tags

1

Q: Create the "On-Topic" FAQ Article

We need to prepare for our site to enter public beta, and one of the things we need to do is define what goes in the help center and the tour. This is one of The 7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta. Here's what the 7 Essential Questions page says about creating documentation: Much of th...

discussion on-topic help-center

8

Q: Do we really need to ask about creating tags?

I don't think we need to ask about creating tags all the time. It has been said several times: tags are one way to add categorization to questions, which should be used when they have value. Part of the purpose of the private beta period is to define the scope of the site. This to some degree i...

discussion tags retagging

0

Q: Accept Answer Thursday

We had a nice post a while ago about not accepting answers too early. This is good! Well done. Remember to poke* people who accept too quickly to remind them. However, lets look at the flip side of this. Can we please poke* people who have questions over a week old, with answers that have at lea...

discussion accepted-answer poke

3

Q: Can we ask about how ethics affect a human-built world?

If humans build a world from scratch, say a colony on another planet, or a generation ship such as in this question, can we ask how their ethics would affect their choices in how to design such a world?

discussion on-topic