The Bridge

CruelCow

7:00 PM

@NickT Yes, that caster is nuts

Nick T

The caster voice quality is so irritating, sounds worse than phone (8 kHz)

Oak

@sjohnston Well, what I want is to mercilessly stomp the poor questions, and to lovingly hug the quality ones. I hope that if others adopt a similar policy we could end up with questions good enough for the anti-ITG crowd to not despise so much.

We'll see...

Arda Xi

@sjohnston The enemy also has guns.

Oak

Because as much as I love the ITG concept, I agree that (1) the really vague ones are impossible to answer AND not useful for anyone else, and (2) we do have a lot of ITG questions. More than what I thought we would have.

But I still believe the non-vague ITG questions can be of use to others, even though some disagree.

sjohnston

@ArdaXi Firstly, I wouldn't call other users "the enemy." Secondly, my belief is that anything not explicitly disallowed should be allowed. So I just don't want to see things closed simply because some users don't like them, without a policy backing that up.

2

As long as we can point to the quality of the question as the close reason rather than it simply being ITG, I'm fine with that.

Nick T

7:05 PM

what I don't get is why people downvote every answer to ITG questions just because they don't meet every criteria on the original question, the answers could still be useful to people googling the same/similar vocabulary

Arda Xi

@sjohnston I believe being ITG is a bad quality in itself.

sjohnston

(Even though I don't have much fondness for ITG these days).

Arda Xi

And I've given reasons for that many, many times.

sjohnston

@ArdaXi The point, however, is that it's your opinion. It is not site policy.

Arda Xi

@sjohnston True, and it's my close vote, not the site's.

Of course I wouldn't be able to continue that if I were to become a mod.

Through another bad decision by SE.

Oak

7:07 PM

@NickT but... that's precisely the reason to downvote! If the answer doesn't answer the question, I downvote it

sjohnston

Well shit. I don't like mario. I'm going to close every question about Mario games. It's my close vote.

Arda Xi

@sjohnston It's not that I don't like ITG questions.

It is my firm belief they don't belong on our site.

Nick T

@Oak Votes are for if the answer is useful

sjohnston

I don't believe mario belongs here either.

Arda Xi

I have also had ITG questions. I refrained from asking them here because I believe they don't fit.

@sjohnston State reasons. I have.

badp

7:08 PM

@sjohnston Voting to close OT is the first step towards exactly that

Oak

@NickT well, if an answer doesn't answer the question, in my eyes it's the opposite of useful

Arda Xi

@Oak Exactly. It only answers a question for one person.

badp

You're not saying the question is too vague, you're not saying the question is not good enough. It could be the best question ever, but it's just the wrong place to ask it.

Arda Xi

The Q/A pair is not going to be relevant for anyone else. Ever.

Nick T

@Oak How would you know? What if the description is off because the asker isn't remembering correctly?

e.g. mixing games

sjohnston

7:09 PM

@ArdaXi The reasons don't matter. You have reasons to close ITG, so you're going to close. It's not contingent on anyone else agreeing with your opinions. I think mario is primarily about plumbing, which is off-topic here.

Anna Lear

@NickT That's the core problems with ITG questions. It's impossible for the community to judge the answers and vote up the best because only the OP knows if any given answer is correct.

Nick T

But someone could objectively judge if the games proposed as answers are close enough where they might be useful for someone else that's googling with similar vernacular

Lazers

0

Q: Minimum RAM needed for Minecraft server

What is the minimum RAM needed for an Minecraft server? (without using custom servers) There will be at most 5 players, the VPS will be OpenVZ.

Oak

@NickT well, that's a big assumption, and this is the wrong way of doing it. In those cases I might understand listing the other game in a comment, or the end of another answer, like I did here:

3

A: Can't remember name of old flight simulator game

Perhaps it was Cylindrix? One of its "maps" has blue blocks and red background. You can download and play it for free to check if it's the same. Cylindrix is not a flight simulator. The thing is, when you write I had to try and avoid hitting blocks that were coming at me on a grid It doe...

Arda Xi

@sjohnston So tell me where it was decided that plumbing was off-topic for every SE site.

Like, for example, I don't know, questions that only answer one person's problem are.

@sjohnston You're mistaking my interpretation of SE's policy for a baseless opinion.

badp

7:12 PM

At any rate - close reason changed to NARQ.

Oak

@ArdaXi please don't mis-quote me. I'm referring specifically to the act of answering a question with an answer which, knowingly, does not fulfill the question's criteria; I do believe ITG questions as a whole can indeed be useful for other users, as I've stated numerous times.

badp

Later.

Oak

Unless you meant to reply to someone else...

sjohnston

No, I understand that your opinion is based on completely reasonable things. I generally agree with it.

Nick T

It is inherently a more subjective question-type than some others on the site, but there are others that are far worse that aren't neatly classified as itg

The most recent question that bothered me was something like "How do I not die as medic in TF2"

Arda Xi

7:13 PM

@Oak I wasn't mis-quoting you, I was expanding on your point.

Oak

@NickT that might be a good point, but others can claim that just because worse things are allowed, there's no reason to allow bad things. And I agree with them (I just don't agree ITG is bad)

@ArdaXi well, then I guess I just misunderstood you

sjohnston

@ArdaXi I guess I won't say anything more on the topic. My thoughts aren't properly formed, nor am I expressing them very well.

CruelCow

ITG is clearly allowed by the current rules. Voting to close a question for being ITG is a misuse of the vote-privilege.

Arda Xi

@Oak The point after Exactly wasn't a restatement of your point.

@CruelCow I disagree.

Current rules: Questions should be write-once, read-many.

badp

ITG is clearly allowed by the current rules. Voting to close such a question for being off-topic is a mistake.

Arda Xi

7:15 PM

ITG clearly violates that rule.

Nick T

@CruelCow I thought there was some caveats for ITG if they're too vague, etc

badp

fify

Nick T

You can't just tag any question itg and have it be immune to close votes

Oak

@NickT well, too vague != off-topic

CruelCow

@ArdaXi Those are good arguments for disallowing ITG in general, and I agree with them. BUT currently ITG is allowed despite those problems.

badp

7:15 PM

@NickT I said ITG, not itg.

Arda Xi

@CruelCow And I choose to use my vote to apply the rules as I see them.

Nick T

@badp ok?

Arda Xi

I don't disagree with just the people who want it allowed, I disagree with the very fact that it is allowed.

Nick T

Splitting hairs again?

badp

@ArdaXi Are you trying to change my upvote in a downvote?

CruelCow

7:16 PM

@ArdaXi I have no idea what that's supposed to mean

badp

You can't make up stuff on the spot.

Arda Xi

@badp I've always done this.

Nick T

@CruelCow likewise

Arda Xi

@CruelCow Unless they're specifically allowed, they're disallowed based on the rules made by SE.

sjohnston

@ArdaXi Like most rules, they are open to interpretation. When multiple people claim the rules are "clear," but think they say opposite things, then the rules are not, in fact, clear.

Arda Xi

7:17 PM

It's not "allowed unless meta consensus", it's "disallowed unless meta consensus".

badp

Where's the meta post saying we're allowed to ask questions about videogames?

Arda Xi

@badp The FAQ.

Oak

I do think Arda has a point, by the way, the whole point of requiring 5 people for a closure is (other than preventing abuse) to leave a little leeway for community members to voice their opinion on topics which are contended. And I'd say ITG is definitely contended.

Arda Xi

Not sure what the direct meta link is.

badp

Meta consensus here is ITG is generally on-topic. Neeeext.

Arda Xi

7:18 PM

@badp Show me.

badp

The last hour or so of chat clearly shows that.

Arda Xi

That's not consensus, that's a discussion.

Do you know what consensus means?

badp

It means people agreeing.

sjohnston

@Oak That works, up until the point where both sides have 5 or more people who are going to vote consistently. Then it becomes a disaster.

badp

At any rate, this is not a game I shall play

Later

Arda Xi

7:19 PM

I don't agree, do I? Hence no consensus.

@sjohnston In that case, reopen generally wins.

sjohnston

@ArdaXi Ironically, I agree about the lack of consensus.

Nick T

8

Q: What is the point of "help me remember this game" questions?

For example, Help me identify these two old games from before I knew English well (with “screenshots”). Mapping these to existing close reasons, there are two that fit. Too Localized. What value does this question have to anyone else on the planet, other than the one person who asked? In other...

discussion allowed-questions questions identify-this-game

Oak

@sjohnston that is also a good point. We all saw that with game-rec, as you mentioned

Nick T

says that IT* should be banned from all sites

sjohnston

@ArdaXi Probably, but for no particularly good reason.

Arda Xi

7:20 PM

@sjohnston Doing otherwise would be dismissing my opinion.

@sjohnston It's for a good reason, surprisingly.

The reason is that someone who has cast a close vote before can't do it again on the same question.

Which is good.

badp

@NickT I'm not going to agree with Arda's "I DISAGREE SO IT'S WRONG", but that post has +25/-17, and we've been allowing ITGs notwhistanding that post

so no - that's no consensus

sjohnston

@ArdaXi Perhaps I should rephrase. Reopen may generally win, but it doesn't necessarily indicate that the question was more deserving to be open than closed (assuming five vote to close and five vote to open again)

Arda Xi

@badp Thank you.

Nick T

Your answers says "Jeff's position is final", but doesn't really specifiy which point of his is the final one

Arda Xi

@sjohnston True.

Oak

7:21 PM

@NickT Jeff basically forfeited some of his opposition in a later blog post, if I remember correctly. But he still hates those questions with a vengeance :)

badp

My post OTOH is for ITG and has +44/-3. Now that's more like "consensus"

Loktar

sheepishly what are ITG's?

CruelCow

identify-this-game

Loktar

ah ok.

badp

@Loktar game identification questions

Loktar

7:22 PM

Thats the only question Ive ever asked on here.

badp

I'll edit it so you can change your vote if you wish so. Done.

Nick T

@Loktar isopropyl-thiogalactoside

sjohnston

@NickT As far as I can tell, Jeff basically said "ITG" is crap and I'm going to stick my fingers in it whenever I don't like it. Then he proceeded to do basically nothing on that front. So I don't know what to think about that.

Oak

@Loktar hehe nice manning-up there to ask that :)

badp

At any rate - in my eyes

ITG is generally okay

CruelCow

7:24 PM

So uh, how about we start a new meta discussion and decide it once-and-for-all?

badp

Post on meta to try and change that, I think you'll get some consensus. Will it be enough? Who knows! That's why we have meta.

Arda Xi

@badp When have you ever been helped by someone else's ITG?

sjohnston

@CruelCow Easier said than done...

Nick T

I'd probably vote for killing ITG

sjohnston

@CruelCow Of course, starting a meta discussion is easy. "Deciding" is hard.

If we learned nothing else from game-rec, we learned that.

Nick T

7:26 PM

ITG is fairly easy category to classify, nowhere near as waffly as [*-rec], which apparently includes mods, etc

CruelCow

Well there has to be some kind of protocol what happens if the community can't agree. Answer with the most upvotes becomes law?

sjohnston

@NickT Even with game-rec, I don't think very much of the conversation was about what qualifies as a rec.

Nick T

It's like politics, if no new law passes, nothing happens, status-quo.

Arda Xi

@CruelCow People apply the rules as they see fit.

CruelCow

But in politics there are clear rules who is allowed to vote and how many are needed to agree

sjohnston

7:28 PM

@CruelCow That was, in fact what we did. But we didn't do a good job deciding which answers were valid, a popular answer ended up not really working and getting disqualified. People were irritated all around. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Arda Xi

If you want to see how to reach consensus, look at Wikipedia.

sjohnston

@CruelCow The point is, it's very easy to say "let's just vote," but there are some intricacies to it that are easy to overlook and they can bite us in the butt.

Nick T

@sjohnston Yes, the infamous bait and switch

sjohnston

@CruelCow So when someone says "this is easy, lets just vote," I get worried.

Oak

@ArdaXi I think ITG can definitely be helpful for others. Whether badp specifically found any of them useful isn't a good metric. The new "this question/answer was helpful" mechanism can actually help gauge this, though. For instance, this answer:

5

A: Side-scroller iPhone game where an astronaut shoots aliens

It sounds like you're thinking of Inkvaders by Chillingo.

Nick T

7:30 PM

tbh, ITG seems much more clear-cut than *-rec

CruelCow

@sjohnston I understand that, I didn't mean to imply it was easy, but that it was right. If people just start voting open/close we will get nowhere.

Oak

Has received a "this was helpful" vote

Arda Xi

@Oak That does not mean it was helpful to the person who clicked it.

sjohnston

@CruelCow I agree. Openy/closey is a stopgap measure that doesn't scale well.

Arda Xi

My question is, has anyone, ever stumbled upon an ITG question while searching for the exact game in the accepted answer?

Nick T

7:31 PM

why would you if you know the game?

Oak

@ArdaXi umm... clicking "this was helpful" does not mean it was helpful to the one who clicked it? I missed you here...

Arda Xi

@Oak I can see a Starcraft 2 answer and click this was helpful even though I don't play SC2.

Same as I can upvote it.

sjohnston

@ArdaXi While technically true, I doubt the impetus for clicking the "helpful" button is generally the same as for voting up.

Oak

@ArdaXi OK. But my personal guess is that a user who voted "this was useful" on an answer found it personally useful. I guess you can claim otherwise

Arda Xi

@Oak I'd like to refrain from guessing.

Oak

7:33 PM

And I'm fairly confident, especially regarding anonymous users

Arda Xi

I doubt that there is anyone who found the answer helpful while looking for the exact answer before seeing the question.

sjohnston

I will vote up a well-formed question/answer that appears to be correct, even if I don't know about the game, because I can see some quality and it rewards those people for that quality. But why would I, as a very low-rep user, say a question or answer is useful that I know nothing about?

Nick T

Is there some post about why tags that 'can't stand alone' (which was the oft-quoted criteria for tags on EE.SE) like game-mechanics are allowed here?

Arda Xi

For example, I could think about a game, search for its characteristics, find an answered ITG and like the answer, but I doubt it's the game I was looking for.

sjohnston

@ArdaXi It would be interesting to see the statistics. I also wonder what percentage of people who actually find a post helpful click the button.

Arda Xi

7:34 PM

@sjohnston I told you, I don't want to guess what "This was helpful" means beyond, just, "This was helpful."

sjohnston

@ArdaXi Okay. That's fair.

Arda Xi

"This was helpful" can mean "This was helpful" to the person who asked the question.

Nick T

They should up-vote or click the checkmark before that

Oak

@ArdaXi well I disagree here, I think "this was useful" votes on ITG answers are almost certain to be from people looking for that game; but I suppose we can never truly know.

Arda Xi

@Oak As long as we have no concrete data, I'm not going to base conclusions on it.

sjohnston

7:36 PM

Out of curiosity, who can see those "helpful" votes?

Arda Xi

@sjohnston Err, it's on a page somewhere.

Nick T

I don't get it, why does it matter why it was helpful?

Arda Xi

gaming.stackexchange.com/tools/post-feedback

Oak

@ArdaXi as I said, I disagree.

Arda Xi

@NickT Because my question was whether or not anyone but the asker was helped by an ITG answer.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments, and the tendency of people to disparage statistics that do not support their positions. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point. The term was popularised in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." However, the phrase is ...

sjohnston

7:38 PM

@NickT Because a lot of people strongly suspect that identify this game questions answer the original poster's question, and then are never again useful for anyone else trying to identify that game.

Oak

@NickT that's also a good point :)

@sjohnston I suspect it's a 10k tool, though

sjohnston

@NickT If they think it's helpful because they're treating it as a very crappy game-rec question, that's not really what we want. Because then it's either useless, or crappy from the perspective of the people actually utilizing it.

Nick T

@sjohnston But isn't a answer (which I think you meant to say) that is helpful uncategorically good (to that one user at least)?

Arda Xi

@sjohnston Exactly!

@NickT But that doesn't make the question acceptable.

@sjohnston That's exactly what I couldn't put into words, thank you.

@NickT To that one user. We don't cater to that one user. We cater to the internet.

GnomeSlice ツ

I don't know what we did, but another user and I accidentally created a new Minecraft block.

sjohnston

7:40 PM

@NickT I see where you're coming from.

Arda Xi

Otherwise we would allow game-rec.

sjohnston

@ArdaXi Well, ideally we cater to both.

CruelCow

@GnomeSliceツ is that what the kids call it nowadays?

Nick T

@ArdaXi We should cater to people that actually visit the site

Arda Xi

@sjohnston Then why don't we allow game-rec?

sjohnston

7:41 PM

@GnomeSliceツ ha!

Arda Xi

It helps people.

CruelCow

Wow, ITG is #5 in our tag-ranking

GnomeSlice ツ

sjohnston

@NickT True, but we shouldn't necessessarily cater to every single one of those people. We want to help, and to answer questions. But we also want to develop a community with certain rules that keep it helpful and organized. Those rules will be great to some people. Others won't be able to stand them.

GnomeSlice ツ

I mean we actually made a new BLOCK.

Nick T

7:42 PM

@ArdaXi I'm trying to discuss the status-quo and you keep changing the premise that "ITG is all bad" which, while I somewhat agree with, doesn't help with the here and now

GnomeSlice ツ

You can copy and paste it using worldedit too.

And it's not the texture pack.

sjohnston

@NickT As they say, you can't please all of the people all of the time

Arda Xi

@NickT How do I change it?

GnomeSlice ツ

It's a double step, but for some reason, it's showing the top texture on all six sides.

Arda Xi

I've always said that.

sjohnston

7:43 PM

@GnomeSliceツ Way to break minecraft

Arda Xi

I've been saying that for months.

Nick T

So post a pre-vote question on meta or whatever

like I think there was for game-rec

GnomeSlice ツ

@sjohnston Other people can see it too. And it's persistent.

sjohnston

@NickT I would suggest we first have a discussion about what went wrong with that system before we use it again.

GnomeSlice ツ

As long as we always keep one, we can use Worldedit to copy it around.

I'm gonna show notch.

sjohnston

7:45 PM

As much as I loathe the idea of adding yet another step

Nick T

@sjohnston Hence my suggestion for the pre-[pre-]*vote post :P

sjohnston

@GnomeSliceツ Now you just need to figure out how to spread it to other people's servers. And then your glorious creation can spread out into the world, crushing all who oppose it.

@NickT yaaaaay........ :-/

Nick T

what's BKB in DOTA2

some item?

sjohnston

I think we should wait until the election is done at least. We don't have to rush into anything.

GnomeSlice ツ

Nick T

7:48 PM

@sjohnston Psh, the election cycle is when you're supposed to discuss these issues. Clearly you are not an American.

CruelCow

@NickT Black King Bar, an item.

sjohnston

@NickT Luckily, in America, the election cycle starts the day after the last election. Also, the talking done by candidates rarely qualifies as "discussion".

Nick T

@CruelCow Is most of DOTA2 a direct port from DotA? Items, heroes, etc?

CruelCow

@NickT As far as I can see from the streaming yes. Heroes, abilities, items, map

Lazers

0

Q: Is it possible to run Minecraft on AGP Aperture Size?

I want to force Minecraft to use AGP Aperture Size. I played Minecraft on GeForce4 MX with AGPX8 (64 mb) but it burned one day so now I am using builded-in videocard. My current AGP Aperture Size is set to 64 mb.My specs: Motherboard Name: Hewlett-Packard HP d530 SFF(PE095S) Videocard: Intel(R)...

minecraft pc

0

Q: Are there any good Mega Man flash games?

I've never plates a Mega Man game before and I thought the easiest way to get into the series (without any classic consoles) would be to play a flash game. I could always download an emulator if that'd be better.