V'dibarta Bam

Menachem

2:03 AM

is it possible mi.yodeya.com is not redirecting properly? This link doesn't work for me: mi.yodeya.com/questions/3211/…

Monica Cellio

8

Q: yodeya.com/* links are not working

When I browse to http://yodeya.com/q/1 or http://mi.yodeya.com/q/1, I get a blank page. These URLs ought to (and used to) resolve to What's a good website for asking questions about Jewish life and learning and getting crowd-sourced answers?, and in general, yodeya.com/* and mi.yodeya.com/* shoul...

Yes they're currently broken. :-( We hope SE can investigate soon, especially because:

@JonEricson in case it helps influence prioritization: we use these links in our publications, two of which will be "in season" and thus distributed more soon: Purim in mid-March and Pesach in mid-April. Having these links working soon would be really helpful; the last thing we want is for a recipient of a book to actually check out a URL found therein, only to get a blank page and conclude "eh, guess those guys don't exist any more". Thanks. — Monica Cellio ♦ yesterday

msh210

12:56 PM

It's now more important to the site than before that you (up- and down-) vote when appropriate.

5

In fact, we should probably have a Meta post pointing that out. I've been mildly upset at the lack of downvotes on MY for quite a while now, and now that lack will negatively impact the site more than before. (As just one example, judaism.stackexchange.com/q/80119 has only 6 gross downvotes but the comment "I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a rant." has eleven up-arrows.)

If we have access to the algorithm used to make the new ask-block kick in, then we could determine which users would be affected by it if more people downvoted. (Say, if each post had three times as many gross downvotes as it does in fact, or something.) But I don't know that we do have access to that algorithm. @MonicaCellio, you'd probably know: do we?

Actually, I guess we can do the same for judaism.stackexchange.com/help/asking-rate-limited . Is that algorithm public?

msh210

1:15 PM

@IsaacMoses Note that Daniel's @Daniel 's recent +4/−1 answer has had quite a bit less time for people to vote on it than the others, so its score may be indicative of as-strong acceptance by the community as Y ez's +7/−2 answer and almost as much as @IsaacMoses 's +6/−0 answer. Especially since it serves to temper the latter two, it may be worth implementing. (All this assumes votes are when we implement as they are now.) But [cont'd]

[cont'd] doubtless I'm biased by the fact that I personally upvoted that answer of Daniel's. What do others think?

Isaac Moses

2:00 PM

> Don't worry about the exact details of the algorithm used for blocking - in general, it's fairly conservative as far as who or what gets blocked. On the majority of sites, this will affect few if any users in the near future. Most users will encounter rolling rate-limits and warnings long before they encounter this block.

I think that working to increase awareness about the importance of voting is the best course.

Isaac Moses

2:20 PM

@msh210 I think, along the lines of @DoubleAA's comment there, that we should be wary of complicating the rules too much - which is an even stronger argument against adding a rate limit at all. Last year, we opted to be incremental - rewriting the content guidelines and saving rate limits for future consideration.

If we do add a rate-limit this year, perhaps we should do it in a simple form and then re-evaluate after.

Also, it would be good to take another look at the existing policy and see if there's any opportunity for trimming out existing complication.

Monica Cellio

3:08 PM

@msh210 AFAIK the algorithms aren't public, and that's probably for the best. Somebody would just try to game them otherwise...

@msh210 I agree with the sentiment. For that specific example, note that the comment predates an edit that removed a lot of the ranting (though it still needs work). I removed my DV after the edit to send a small "yes, keep moving in that direction" signal.

All that said -- I agree that a meta post would be a good idea. Meta and chat reach different subsets of our users.

@msh210 there's some fuzziness in the overall results so far. I wonder if we have people who would change their older votes but can't because they're locked in, but don't want to edit and out themselves.

I upvoted the new proposal to relax the rule starting with taanit Esther. I'm not worried about inconsistency that relaxes a rule for a couple days; I'm not concerned that people will learn from that "no PTIJ limits" a year later. That said, we also run PTIJ until a couple days past Purim, which I'd forgotten when I voted, so maybe that's enough.

If we decide to impose a limit this year (which is new) and also to relax it or not enforce it for the last couple days, that doesn't preclude coming back next year and saying we need to make it stronger. The risk to the site in trying the experiment seems small to me.

(Besides, remember that anything egregiously bad can be dealt with in other ways.)

msh210

3:42 PM

@IsaacMoses Ye-es. Except that incrementality (is that a word?) can be in limitation rather than in complexity, in which case we start with Daniel's suggestion and then reevaluate.

@MonicaCellio I can edit all the posts.

...done.

@MonicaCellio Oh, that's true (that we extend it a bit so maybe that's enough).

Anyway, we can wait for more voting (and possibly other) activity on that Q. Should we featured it?

msh210

4:19 PM

@MonicaCellio I'd like to make a full-blown "downvoting is important, here's why, here's why especially now (citing that Meta.SE post), here's evidence that it's not done sufficiently (to my own liking, that is :-)), and here's what to do about it" post, as it will be more informative and probably more effective than a simple "here's what's new from Meta.SE" post, but I don't have time now to write it.

Monica Cellio

4:42 PM

@msh210 that would be a good meta post to have, yes. There's an old "vote early, vote often" SE blog post that might be relevant too; I don't remember how much it talks about downvotes, but it's worth a look.

msh210

Vote Early, Vote Often

Jeff Atwood on October 19, 2010

Have you ever wondered why the vote buttons and score are so prominent on every Stack Exchange question?

It mentions downvoting near the top without stressing it, and stresses upvoting.

Isaac Moses

@msh210 Done. We ought to make final changes and feature the policy post before שבת

msh210

5:00 PM

@IsaacMoses Right, motzae Shabas is rosh chodesh.

I didn't realize, in our discussion above, how soon it is.

Monica Cellio

5:11 PM

@msh210 ooh, yeah -- that got away from me, too.

It's a little late to bring in a different approach so I'll ask here to start. SE has rolling question blocks that are based on your quality record, not quantity. Should the ability to post PTIJ questions depend on how the questions you've already posted this year have fared?

msh210

@MonicaCellio Quick! Post an answer to that Meta post! :-)

Actually, I'm pretty sure someone's mentioned it there already.

Monica Cellio

@msh210 considering it, but I really did want to get a sense in here of how disruptive that would be, given the timing.

msh210

1

A: Maximum limits on PTIJ questions per user

msh210 provided some very helpful analysis from the 2015 Purim season (here with user IDs). In the context of question limits, I see the following take aways in that data asking more than 7 questions produces low overall quality (but sample is small) the top 6 users by average score all asked...

Monica Cellio

Also, I don't have a concrete proposal, or an easy way to trackit.

msh210

And this comment on that answer:

I like the positive question record idea. It allows users who are good at the game to keep playing, while limiting users who aren't so good. And, coupled with AAAA's idea of deleting negatively-scored questions, we might see more good. — Scimonster Mar 28 '16 at 19:40

Monica Cellio

5:15 PM

@msh210 ah! it's the second of his two cases. Thanks.

msh210

@MonicaCellio I don't see how a concrete proposal would disrupt. It may not garner views/votes, but I don't see how it'd disrupt.

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio It would likely take a relatively high amount of work to check such a condition.

Daniel

6:17 PM

@MonicaCellio That's a big part of the reason I'm opposed to a limit in the first place. To me, PTIJ questions are just MY questions. They have to be a certain quality or they get downvoted/deleted. If you have enough downvoted/deleted posts the site blocks you automatically

I honestly think this whole thing is about the performance of one, maybe two, users.

And IINM moderators discussed this with one of these users last year

so I think we might be really over-engineering this whole thing

I mean look at this graph: data.stackexchange.com/judaism/query/461192#graph

throw out the outliers and there's absolutely no correlation between question quantity and vote score

Monica Cellio

6:36 PM

@IsaacMoses it would have to be community-enforced: if you see something that you think is a problem, look into it and speak up if appropriate.

0

A: Maximum limits on PTIJ questions per user

Hybrid proposal: So long as your average score per question this season is at least 4 (I'm open to changing this number), no limit. People who are good at the PTIJ game can keep doing it. (Inspired by option 2 here.) Otherwise, you must wait at least 24 hours after your last question, per...

Daniel

6:53 PM

Mar 31 '16 at 5:00, by msh210

I think the solution to our PTIJ problems is to disallow posting PTIJ questions during the second 1/6 of any minute (from xx:xx:11 through xx:xx:20): those have a lower score. We should encourage posting during the first 1/6 of each minute instead: those have a higher score. (http://data.stackexchange.com/judaism/query/462937)

Mar 31 '16 at 19:49, by Daniel

@msh210 Seriously, though, this is my main objection to setting a limit. I just don't see any correlation between more posts and lower score. I just see one user who posts a lot and also happens to have a low average score

Mar 31 '16 at 20:02, by Monica Cellio

@Daniel I had an informal chat with our most-prolific PT poster. He didn't realize how large a proportion he'd asked and he will pay more attention to volume in the future.

For all we know, Monica's chat may be all we need to improve average quality

We don't even know if there's a real issue anymore

3

Isaac Moses

@Daniel You make a good case for not adding additional complication

3

Daniel

@IsaacMoses I agree

there's no reason to complicate the PTIJ policy with a rate limit

that relies on community enforcement just as much as any of my more complicated suggestions

Isaac Moses

7:19 PM

0

A: Maximum limits on PTIJ questions per user

Low-key alternative: Instead of making a rate-limiting rule, just include a gentle reminder to not post junk, and then remind any users who post many low-quality posts to try to adjust their quality/quantity balance. The reminder could go at the bottom of the "What" section of the policy, and c...

^^^ Lower-key proposal, addressing quality as well as this comment:

Perhaps we need a footnote as well that reminds users that insulting people isn't funny. — Double AA ♦ Mar 11 '16 at 15:32

@msh210 I added the featured tag, but other stuff in our sidebar is keeping it out.

Monica Cellio

8:12 PM

@IsaacMoses I think this is a good path forward.

@IsaacMoses maybe delay the start of the Purim event for a few more days to make room? (But that box is also heavily cached; a featured meta post should trump a merely "hot" one, and maybe it will in a couple hours.)

Isaac Moses

9:46 PM

@MonicaCellio The featured may be subordinated to the Hot because the featured is very old

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses oh, hmm. Yes, featuring an old question might not be a common use case.

A different site with a jargon issue. This answer is pretty similar to ours:

4

A: Topic-Specific Vocabulary

I don't see this as being a problem. It would be nice to ask in "laymans terms" where possible. Editing in explanations or links to such a question isn't a bad idea. However, if the asker has a specific technical question asked in the correct technical language then they most likely need a speci...

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio Nice

Daniel

What does it mean for a question to be closed as a duplicate by Community?

does that mean many people without close votes voted to recommend closing in the review queue?

Monica Cellio

10:03 PM

@Daniel that happens when someone proposes a dupe, the system asks the OP if he concurs, and he clicks on "yes". It's counter-intuitive, but I guess it's that way because at least two different users were involved in the close.

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio @Daniel I just discovered that this is explained now when you mouse over the word "Community" in that context. Still counter-intuitive.

Example:

2

Q: Are professional sports players liable for an opponent's injury?

Shemot 21:18-19 discusses the procedure of payment when one person injures another. Does, say, a professional boxer have to pay his opponent if he injures him during a boxing match? Are the rules different, here, because professionals enter the competition understanding that there is a direct ri...

parshanut-torah-comment torts-damages mishpatim injury

Daniel

@IsaacMoses That's the question that prompted my question

Interesting that it includes both me and community as I was the one who originally suggested that it's a dupe

Transcript for