@Chris well, I'm no good at coding...I was just thinking to improve the graphics here a bit...like background, logo, etc.

@SanjuktaGhosh a timer might not be too hard. As soon as you press enter, it'd trigger a 2 minute timer. Thats it (maybe)

@Mesentery that means that its very easy to do such modifications in the site. @Chris why not ask the mods at chem.SE or anime.SE how they do that...?

Or they do it through meta posts only...? :/

@another'Homosapien' The thing about a meta post is to find out what the community thinks about such modifications.

Not doing them first hand.

And since this would change the appearance of the site, I think it is a good idea to hear some opinions (and probably get additional input) first.

@Chris ahh okay okay...I took it the wrong way ;)

I can post it on meta then...

@another'Homosapien' If you are talking about bots, then it is not very easy to write a bot ;) But I don't if users can make modifications like graphics, etc. maybe SE does that.

@Mesentery I meant timer, though thats not very easy (for me) either ;)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Mesentery We definitely cannot do this by ourself, this needs to be done by stackexchange.

But we can discuss it and then get one of the community managers into it.

@Chris you writing meta post?

Or am I...?

@another'Homosapien' Go ahead with it. I have not too much time right now.

@Chris all right...I'm going in ;)

Here it is guys! Come on, join in quickly :D

@Chris Yes, Of course :)

@another'Homosapien' @Mesentery So it(meta post) wouldn't include the bot proposals?

@SanjuktaGhosh Maybe we could ask the opinion of other users of a bot in this site and if there are positive reactions, anyone eligible can create it.

@SanjuktaGhosh of course it would! Just somebody else can propose it...@Mesentery why not you?

@another'Homosapien' There is no need for another meta post. You can include it in that post :)

@Mesentery I meant another answer on that meta post :P

Sakamoto in AnimeSE.

-the bot I was talking about

@SanjuktaGhosh What type of question that bot detects.

If I know it's functions then I can try to write an answer about the bot request.

I didn't find much on metaAnime, so no idea. It might pick up posts randomly, but I mostly found it posting questions that were later closed or by new users.

I have also another bot in mind that detects spam.

@SanjuktaGhosh if it detect closed or posts by new users, then I don't think anybody will agree on that answer as we have review queues

Could be.

@Mesentery On the main site?

Having a bot do it would seep up the process

@Mesentery

@Chris Yes , It detects all the spam , maybe without flagging also.

@Mesentery This is already done in the background by the stackexchange system

The few spams that come through are easily dealt by the mods

Are you talking about SmokeDetector, It is not an official bot.

@another'Homosapien' Then I will drop the idea of writing an answer about bot request. Not expecting any positive reactions :)

@SanjuktaGhosh Our chat is not that active, users rarely visit the chat.

Yay.

@Mesentery you could ask at anime.SE chat about that bot

We all have to give some effort if we really wanna make this happen :)

@canadianer why don't you write a post on this on the new meta question? ;)

@another'Homosapien' Asked , awaiting reply :)

Am I the only one who wants to enable italics in username? :P

@another'Homosapien' I got the reply, It only detects questions asked by new users. So, it is available in the review queue also.

@Mesentery wait...how does it help then?

@another'Homosapien' Yes , you only have scientific name in the display name ;)

@Mesentery :'(

@another'Homosapien' I thought of asking it, but I don't want annoy them. Maybe their chat is active and people detect them faster while on the chat :)

@Mesentery I think it would be better to have a...kind of...guest bot

Whenever a new person comes in, a bot will introduce them to the site

Watsay?

Why not propose this? @Mesentery

Introduce the new person to us or introduce the new person about the site.

@Mesentery about the site...its quite common on other websites

"Welcome to Biology Stack Exchange!" "Click here to ask new questions" etc. etc.

Like a dynamic tour page on the home page itself

@another'Homosapien' This idea will also be rejected by others as all new users get notification about the tour page. BTW if you are interested in creating a bot, it is also allowed without others opinions. It is allowed in SE

@Mesentery new users do get a notification, but how many of them read it?

Honestly, I didn't...at first at least

If we make this dynamic, it could be very helpful

But it won't seem like a bot then :/

Looks like it's a good idea

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Mesentery go ahead then

I'm waiting for another answer :)

Can you say some more advantages, so I can post it :)

Its interactive

Its user friendly

It might use less script than the current tour page, so it'll load easily

But remember SE will not provide bots, we will have to create it.

Somebody here could do that

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So the post needs to be changed?

Nopes

@Mesentery will add another answer

It is about involving a community-manager to bring the proposals into effect/decide.

Yeah

But first we need to collect all proposals and opinions

As @Chris says...

I think there should be a different post(question) for it as executing a bot won't involve the managers.

@SanjuktaGhosh I don't think so

Why not?

We first need to inform community managers that we want to do this...

Oh.

They won't provide the script, but they must provide permission

@terdon could you do that? ;)

terdon's a community-manager?

A programmer (hopefully?)...

I was talking about the bot script :P

Oh.

@another'Homosapien' Do what?

He was talking about this.

Oh man. What a horrible idea! I hate that sort of "wizard" or automatic bot.

:)

So a new user would be forced to sit or click through 5 or 6 screens of stuff before using the site?

@terdon No, just a short summary about on-topic questions and how to write a good answer.

@Mesentery How is that different from the tour?

Are you talking about modifications to this chat room or to the site?

@terdon Only some people read about the tour. Moreover the tour does not mention about homework questions,etc

I think we should first fix the mess with the whole "homework" situation, really.

@terdon Iam talking about the chat room, I don't think we can makeodifications on the site.

We can ask :)

But a bot that automatically does things to chat rooms is generally a very bad idea. It's been tried and ended up confusing users who thought they were interacting with a human. It is also usually horribly invasive.

@terdon The user should be mentioned that Iam a bot in the welcome message by the bot.

Well, see how it goes on meta. However, given how rarely this chat room is used, I doubt it's worth it. That said, I tend to be very against bots in chat rooms since, in my experience, they cause more harm then good.

But that's just me.

@terdon no no...no bot in chat room!

I meant a greeting bot on the homepage

Like the one who says "how may i help you?"

Oh. Even worse :)

Sorry, I am really the wrong person to have this discussion with. I hate that sort of "assistant".

This one will say "welcome to Biology.SE! Let me guide you through this site to let you know its basic rules... [yes please] [no I know everything]"

Sort of this

@terdon :/

@terdon if not discussion, could you make a script for this? :D

Everyone has their own preferences.

@another'Homosapien' Not really. I mean, I guess I could if I tried, but I don't know much (anything) about web-scripting.

@terdon and I do respext them...thats why I put [no i know everything]. Thats the "skip" button

@terdon oh...then we have a problem

In any case, if you wanted something to run on the main page, you would need to ask SE to do it. Nobody else has access.

Chat bots are different.

@terdon thats why I started that meta post. We'll first gather all proposals, then mods would contact SE and request them to modify the site...or at least ask if it can be done

@terdon you mean it doesn't require permission from SE?

@another'Homosapien' No, bots are just normal users that, well, happen to be bots. They don't need any special rights or access. You just create a user account and give that to your bot. Changing the main page would involve changing the page's code.

@terdon Care to elaborate on this: "I think we should first fix the mess with the whole "homework" situation, really."

@canadianer We are closing things as "homework" when they are absolutely not homework. We are using that close reason for lack of research but the word means "work the teacher assigned to you" so it is very confusing.

(also see the discussion around that)

@terdon So do you propose not closing these questions or changing the homework close reason?

Both. Poorly researched but on topic questions should be downvoted, not closed. That's what votes are for. And if we close something as homework, it must be work assigned to a student. Anything else is not homework. By definition.

Well, I happen to agree.

@terdon you mean another point to vote for close...

No, I mean using homework to only close stuff where someone is asking us to do their homework for them. We are now using it for anything that shows no research, even if it was asked by a 40-year-old baker or whatever, who hasn't had "homework" in decades.

That is just confusing to users and pointless, IMO.

Still, you mean closing "lack-of-research questions" by not calling them "homework" but "lacking research"

Thats what I meant by "another reason for voting to close" ;)

@another'Homosapien' No, I mean not closing them at all. Closing is for things that are not on topic, not welcome here. We are, to my knowledge, unique among all SE sites in that we abuse a close reason to close bad but on topic questions.

No research but on topic should just be downvoted, not closed.

@terdon This got out of hand, I agree.

I was actually going to bring this up on meta recently but it's been discussed several times before and people just do there own thing regardless

@terdon haha agree on that...but still don't understand why lak-of-research questions would be on-topic :/

I personally like to see effort put into questions but, as applied, the distinction between good questions and questions with lack of effort is arbitrary.

@canadianer and thats where one needs to be careful while voting to close

I still do feel that questions lacking effort should be closed, until the question is really worth being answered, like (I feel) the vitamin b17 question.

Careful is not the word I'd use to describe how the homework close reason is currently used.

@canadianer certainly, the current situation is far from what it should be...

@another'Homosapien' Because whether something is on topic or not depends entirely upon the, well, the topic. Bad questions are not off topic by definition. They're just bad questions. That's what downvotes are for.

@another'Homosapien' No, they should be downvoted.

@terdon ah! So thats the point... :)

Wax moth larvae biodegradation of polyethylene plastic bags to ethylene glycol

@another'Homosapien' Okay but the Indian language site is closed. Maybe adequate number of enthusiasts couldn't get know about such a site was getting born at area51.

@another'Homosapien' Beside so many numbers of languages within same country; they are so much different; that it is okay to keep a separate site for even each one.

As well they have some general aspects too; so Indian language site does not lose its importance.

@AlwaysConfused it we had a separate site for each indian language, it would outnumber the total number of SE sites present now ;)

@AlwaysConfused ohh never knew of that :(