The Periodic Table

Q: What does it take to have consensus?

@hBy2Py Nah

It's determined subjectively

9

Meta is an odd beast. Admittedly, I still don't understand parts of it. Typically, requests the community can respond to get the required attention. They get decided upon, and acted upon. Requests related to tags, chat events, policy deciding and so on. I don't exactly know or ever wondered how ...

ok

i think, at the very least, I would like to run this by the other mods first

@orthocresol Sure

@orthocresol <nod>

@orthocresol Shade it like this:

@orthocresol Things end up in nowhere when they're too general

4:18 PM

Oh.. ok

Except obviously have the shading underneat the other stuff

And probably a lighter gray would be better

Our HW meta posts were usually general

That was the problem with them.

You read them, said, "Awesome. But what do I do now?"

This is different because it's policy stuff, and easy to implement if people agree

ok

thats true

There, say what you like about apple stuff, but i'm really liking this ipad..

@orthocresol I'd say lighten the gray a fair bit more

4:23 PM

More?

ok

I should post this on UX.

<nod>

The contrast between the text and that gray isn't high enough, I think

It would be good for the still-in-definition Technical Communication, too

@orthocresol You could use negative x values for "Pitches for your own personal theories or work". ;-)

Haha... hmm...

@Loong No, this diagram is only for questions posting about a specific question.

@hBy2Py See starting here.

Don't worry, Loong has been reading chat all day.

4:29 PM

Oh.. I thought he was reading the Blue Book all day.

Nah, he has been enriching uranium all day.

!!flip/Stalking L. Oong

Chemobot

(∿°○°)∿Sʇɐꞁʞᴉuƃ Ꞁ˙ Oouƃ

@orthocresol haha, no, we only want to order that stuff. We do not want to make it ourselves.

Q: Why there is no bichloride or binitrate ion like bicarbonate or bisulphate?

shudders

0

I have been thinking lately that if there is bicarbonate why there is no bichloride or binitrate, please someone give an easy explanation.

terminology

4:33 PM

@orthocresol LIKE!

@orthocresol Is that green area the "Island of Stability"?

Stability towards closure...

@Loong "Island of Sanity"

@orthocresol Maybe that purple strip shouldn't be a rectangle?

!!FLIP/PURPLE STRIP

Chemobot

◟(`ﮧ´ ◟ )Ԁ∩ᴚԀꞀƎ S⊥ᴚIԀ

4:35 PM

I guess it would be a triangle, opening upwards towards the top, but whatever.

As in, maybe it should get slightly wider toward the top?

yeah

it's all qualitative anyways

I'm lazy.

!!gun

Chemobot

⁞ つ: •̀ ⌂ •́ : ⁞-︻╦̵̵͇̿̿̿̿══╤─

I like the "Good Questions" highlight in there, too, I was thinking about that earlier

4:37 PM

I'm a seal, not a seahorse.

Therefore I can't be pregnant.

Assuming I'm male.

Now you need an "You are here" indicator on your graph for new questions.

@orthocresol This is actually a pretty reasonable ultra-beginner thing to wonder.

@hBy2Py Furthermore, I'm hesitant to downvote stuff that shows thought

Oh, I did not downvote or anything. I just found it funny.

Ok, I also want to make a very rough draft for the user guidance.

@orthocresol Collaborative Google Doc draft?

4:43 PM

Good idea. I will get back to you about that.

It doesn't have to be overly detailed, just a rough idea of what will be mentioned.

<nod>, outline-ish starting point

docs.google.com/document/d/…

hm, a walrus just joined

I feel threatened

Haha, is that what I anonymized as?

That's AWESOME.

now it's a kraken

I'll add that to my Drive and take a look later on.

4:47 PM

somebody's a camel

Probably me

@orthocresol btw, did you see my draft scheduling sheet?

@M.A.R. I think you're the kraken

I went in and out -- think I was the walrus first, am now camel

Oh cool

Wow, ok

I can't see a Kraken, so I gotta be the Kraken

4:49 PM

Buffalo and giraffe, now in scheduling sheet

Nyan cat briefly appeared, then vanished

Please suggest changes to the sheet structure &c.

It's really ugly and awkward with all those time zones in there

But...

not sure how to do it better

think you can get rid of the non-DST, assuming we're gonna get this done within the next... 7 months?

See, this is the stupidest thing about DST. We have more time spent with DST on, than we do with DST off.

Yeah, let's just pick one or the other and stop having to explode everyone's sleep twice a year

Oh no, one day a year it's wonderful sleep.

One day a year it just sucks.

I'm going to have to be careful

Southern Hemisphere is backwards

I think São Paulo is non-DST currently...

@orthocresol Not when you have little kids

They both suck

Our boys are always sooooo grumpy for 1.5 weeks after the time change

Any key time zones or cities obviously missing?

Oh..

5:07 PM

chemistry.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/53132

Is this spam, or valid?

Both?

valid

as long as the article linked is relevant, of course..

it may have been added in by one of the authors of the paper

in which case it's self-promotion

but it's not like it's trying to sell a product - just drum up some citations.

airhuff

5:38 PM

@MelanieShebel, thanks for the edit of my answer. One question; Is US english the "official" language for this site? I ask because my quoted text from Wikipedia used the British spelling "vapour", which you corrected to "vapor". It would be nice to know because I do a lot of edits, and I don't change British spelling to US. It actually seems particularly odd that we should do that for quoted text. Anyway, thx again and I eagerly await your input!

@airhuff Nah

British and American variations of spelling are both acceptable

If an edit changes British to American and vice versa, it's harmful and should be undone

airhuff

@M.A.R. , thx, that's what I thought. I think that maybe the editor has their spell-check set to US English, so British spellings come up as misspellings. I know a lot of the different spellings, but there was one word, can't remember it now, I had been correcting until I realized it was coming up a lot. I found out it was just a British spelling and my ignorance thereof!

@airhuff Yep, and that is probably exactly the only reason Mel changed 'vapour' to 'vapor'

Q: American vs British spelling: Is there a standard? Should there be?

5

The only mention of this that turned up in a quick search was a passing mention three years ago. I've just encountered a pending edit on this question where the editor tidied up the question with MathJax and such, but also proposed to change favored to favoured. My habit when I make edits is t...

discussion editing formatting

<nod>, I would also assume it was accidental. Melanie's been around the site long enough that I figure she's aware of the 'leave it alone' policy on that

GemsFromStackExchange: Nick broke the help center, and it started pulling content from...

6:29 PM

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's homework-like and an AMIRITE question, meaning it's too localized to be helpful to future visitors, and it can't have an exemplary answer considering the OP is both asking and answering in the question. — M.A.R. 4 hours ago

Relevant to our site @Ortho

Melanie Shebel

6:41 PM

@airhuff I didn't notice that it was british spelling, I usually go into a question because of some other mispelling but when I see a british spelling, I let my spell check change that too. Sorry for the confusion. Brit spelling is fine

Feeds

posted on March 30, 2017

Nick broke the help center, and it started pulling content from random old SO posts and comments. https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/345280

GemsFromStackExchange: That’s just silly. Everybody knows that RAM only runs on...

posted on March 30, 2017

That’s just silly. Everybody knows that RAM only runs on Windows.

@Feeds Guy picked the wrong false credentials to buff

airhuff

7:02 PM

@MelanieShebel No problem. I had 2 grammatical errors that you fixed for me outside of the spelling stuff, so much thanks ;) I honestly did not know for sure if there was a policy, though I suspected it was just your spell checker. Thx again for fixing and clarifying!

@Feeds Awesome idea, I think I'll download a new ICP-MS!

7:38 PM

@M.A.R. Yeah.

I actually just finished writing up that guidance post.

I think I will put it in a separate sandbox answer, actually.

7:52 PM

Ok, an outline of the "guidance" meta post is here: chemistry.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3119/16683 <-- @M.A.R., @hBy2Py, anybody else interested

8:33 PM

@orthocresol Looks like a great start to me

Q: Why is introductory chemistry so non-rigorous?

9:23 PM

How did this question not get closed as too broad or opinion-based?

7

In introductory chemistry books, courses, ... Many "definitions" contain words like: typically, most, often, likely, generally. I read since questions on this site mentioning different definitions of same concept in different books. I just read about a concept where the explanation contained s...

terminology

hmm.. borderline case

I think there is even a case for "unclear" here.

I deliberately avoided examples, because in my experience that makes people occupied wit the example and then I never get an answer. — foobar Jul 5 '14 at 12:12