Theoretical Computer Science

Suresh Venkat

3:20 AM

@JoeFitzsimons that's too bad. as punishment we might put you in charge of the blog :)

John Moeller

Is this the right place?

Kaveh

3:34 AM

@JohnMoeller If you are talking about the cstheory town hall meeting, yes, but it is still early.

John Moeller

Oh I know, it's in 2.5 hrs, I just wanted to make sure.

Kaveh

@JoeFitzsimons sorry for the times, wish you could also come.

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

Hi all, just to say hello!

Kaveh

Hi @HsienChihChang

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

Hello @Kaveh, are you preparing for the meeting? It is so early and there are already several people here

Kaveh

3:50 AM

@HsienChihChang張顯之 I am not sure if I will be awake during the first one (it will 2AM here), and I have to got up early tomorrow morning, I don't want to miss the first talk here, but we will see.

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

I see. The workshop looks great, and I've met Xuding Zhu before, he is good :)

Kaveh

@HsienChihChang張顯之 he spoke on Monday. :)

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

Sorry, I just took a quick glance. Sleep tight!

Suresh Venkat

5:21 AM

am here now. 40 minutes early :)

Suresh Venkat

6:00 AM

ok

looks like we're on now

but no one else is :)

Rebecca Chernoff

who brought snacks?! (:

Suresh Venkat

dang

I knew I forgot something

Rebecca Chernoff

):

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

Hi @Suresh and @Rebecca!

John Moeller

I'm here

Suresh Venkat

6:02 AM

Hi

John Moeller

But I barely count

Suresh Venkat

heh

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

Maybe more and more people will join us :)

Suresh Venkat

I was going to start off with some questions from the meta post, but am thinking I'll wait a bit

Maybe a first question: are we comfortable with the current level/quality of the site ?

2

John Moeller

You mean the quality of the questions?

Suresh Venkat

6:06 AM

yes

Ryan Williams

Hi

John Moeller

Overall I think the questions and answers are pretty informative, and they're challenging (for me) to think about

Suresh Venkat

Hey Ryan

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

It seems that the number of questions being closed is increasing. To maintain the current level, we need more answers than questions, and that means more people joining our site.

arnab

Hi

Suresh Venkat

6:07 AM

not sure I follow: why do we need more people joining the site to have more answers ?

although more is always better

Hi arnab

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

The questions covers a wide variety of different areas, and one can only understand answer questions in a few of them.

Suresh Venkat

I see. so we need more representation from the different subareas.

which brings me to another question

Are we doing enough to promote the site in the theory community ? should we do more ? and how ?

2

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

I'm not sure if this is the main cause, but anyway, just a few thoughts :)

John Moeller

Related question: who's underrepresented?

Suresh Venkat

not complexity ;)

John Moeller

6:10 AM

heh

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

definitely not :P

Suresh Venkat

I get the feeling that we're seeing questions in other areas, but not enough answers to justify repeat visits.

I'd for one like to see more straight algorithms, more geometry

Ryan Williams

Why aren't there more algorithms questions? Certainly there are more algorithms researchers than complexity researchers...

arnab

i'm surprised there aren't too many questions asking about clarifications of particular claims in papers. lots of papers are not well written :)

Suresh Venkat

@arnab, we haven't been all that encouraging of such questions

preferring that the questioner email the authors directly

do you think this is something we should change ?

Hi @DaveClarke

John Moeller

6:13 AM

@RyanWilliams Might be related to the community exposure issue

arnab

i think if it's a published paper, it should be open to discussion

but i understand the concern about hurting people's feelings

Rob Simmons

I was about to say the same as @Suresh's comment there - it's not even clear that this is the best forum for a discussion that I'd associate more with a reading-group type of situation.

Suresh Venkat

See this, for example: meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/204/…

Dave Clarke

Hi. Just checking in briefly.... Need to head to work (by bike) before a storm begins, then I'll rejoin.

Suresh Venkat

ok

also this: meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/214/…

arnab

6:16 AM

i see

Suresh Venkat

getting back to the question at hand: concrete ideas for increasing exposure of the site within the larger community ? I think there's a level of basic respect now, but I don't think we're a go-to site

John Moeller

Is it possible to get a block of time or maybe a panel to talk about the site at a conference?

Ryan Williams

I guess the natural thing is to try to link the site with other means of exposure: conferences, blogs, journals, etc. -- then over time the site may take a life of its own

Suresh Venkat

@RyanWilliams what are good ways we might link with conferences/journals ?

here's one thought: the machine learning conferences have a dedicated discussion site where each paper gets a thread for discussion. obviously most papers don't get much discussion, but there's a place where people know to go to ask a question about the paper

might that work here ?

Rob Simmons

Maybe this is an obvious question to everyone else, but what would it mean to for CSTheory to be a go-to site (for a particular area)?

arnab

6:20 AM

btw, who decides which questions appear on the theory blog aggregator?

Ryan Williams

Having a thread for papers where people could ask questions is definitely a start.

arnab

i mean feedworld.net/toc

Suresh Venkat

I'm not entirely sure. I think the main RSS feed was added to the feedworld collection

Ryan Williams

@RobSimmons I think the meaning is that when people have a question about something (relevant to the site), they come to the site and ask it.

Suresh Venkat

now how posts get on that RSS feed I'm not sure: @RebeccaChernoff ?

@RobSimmons also, people come to browse the site to see what's going on

Rebecca Chernoff

6:22 AM

hm?

what rss feed? sorry, you caught me distracted q:

Suresh Venkat

@RebeccaChernoff there's an RSS feed for the cstheory site that we plug into a theory aggregator.

How do posts get on that feed ?

Rebecca Chernoff

which feed? there are many. (:

Suresh Venkat

For example, I know that the twitter feed selects posts baed on some criteria

Kaveh

Hey guys

Rebecca Chernoff

the hot algorithm is used for the twitter posts

Suresh Venkat

6:23 AM

the recent questions feed: cstheory.stackexchange.com/feeds

Hi Kaveh: you made it :)

Would people like to see a per-paper discussion forum at the site ? that might cause a heck of a lot of clutter unless people use blocking tags carefully

135 papers at SODA for example

John Moeller

Not every paper will get talked about though

Rebecca Chernoff

hover over the feed at the bottom of meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com, shows you what it is if I recall correctly.

Kaveh

we can create a tag for discussions on papers so people can filter them (though I doubt anyone will)

Suresh Venkat

so we merely say that you can post on a paper if you like

Kaveh

published papers? (I am not sure it is a good idea for unpublished papers)

Suresh Venkat

6:25 AM

and then we could make sure this is advertised at the conference ?

might be good to try this at a smaller venue first to see if it works

John Moeller

given that you've discouraged such posts in the past, what kind of criteria would the question need to meet?

Suresh Venkat

I think if the premise is to have people discuss, we'd have to relax our rules.

Kaveh

@Suresh, can you give examples?

Suresh Venkat

hmm

arnab

so, it will be a community wiki, with everyone able to edit the question to add their own?

Suresh Venkat

6:27 AM

possibly

maybe if you were at the talk and couldn't ask the question then

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

But the answers may get voted, and the threads will go non-linear

Suresh Venkat

yeah

John Moeller

That seems restrictive

Suresh Venkat

not sure this works

you need threading really

Rob Simmons

This strikes me as something better suited to a real-wiki.

Suresh Venkat

6:28 AM

probably

Kaveh

keep in mind that SE is not designed for discussion (actually designed to discourage them)

John Moeller

Or a mailing list

Suresh Venkat

but while on the topic of outreach, we have an announcement

thanks to @RebeccaChernoff, we now have a dedicated blog associated with cstheory

at cstheory.blogoverflow.com

Rebecca Chernoff

\o/

Suresh Venkat

and no, it's not up and running yet

I mean it is, but there's nothing there yet

John Moeller

6:30 AM

Who are the bloggers?

Kaveh

We need editors for the blog

Suresh Venkat

we're hoping that YOU (yes YOU) willl see fit to contribute to the site

Rebecca Chernoff

your real blog theme is being worked on. Jin's been quite busy with the mobile theme lately, and rather than delay the blog I spun it up with the sketchy theme.

Suresh Venkat

but anyone can be an author

the idea is that we'd have a few editors to clean up posts, check for basic sanity etc, but that reasonable posts from anyone will be welcome.

See more at meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1155/…

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

What is the cross-posting policy for our blog? I mean, if the post is already on other personal blog, can we contribute our past articles here?

Suresh Venkat

6:32 AM

I think we'd like to have mostly original content: the occasional cross post is ok

the idea (I think) is that posts should relate to the site: every post should have at least one link to a question or answer or something like that.

arnab

that's very nice. i think a big discouraging factor to keeping a personal blog is that your commitment to keep updating it. but here, that barrier's absent

Suresh Venkat

we thought that highlighting interesting/unanswered questions of the week

Rebecca Chernoff

@arnab that's why we're focusing on this being a community effort. the more contributors, the less often each person needs to stress about getting a post up each month for instance.

Suresh Venkat

@arnab that's the hope: even if a given person posts once every few weeks, maybe we'd have enough people to have a steady stream. I think even once a week is fine as long as it's regular

Kaveh

So far @JoeFitzsimons and @AaronSterling has expressed interest in being editors for the blog. I guess to make it formal we may want to have a meta post for electing the editors, I guess 4 to 5 editors would be nice so the load is low on them.

Rebecca Chernoff

6:34 AM

Stack Overflow Blog: Blog Overflow

Posted by Rebecca Chernoff on June 23rd, 2011

Every Stack Exchange site starts with a Q&A site, made up of three pieces that help bring the whole community together:

bicycles.stackexchange.com, the main Q&A site

meta.bicycles.stackexchange.com, questions about community and administrative matters

chat.bicycles.stackexchange.com, the third place for real-time collaborations

But wait, there’s more?

A couple months ago, the Super User community took it upon themselves to create a blog run by the community. This effort has been so successful that a couple other communities floated the idea amongst themselves. Internally, we recognize …

Suresh Venkat

if they're fine with it, we could make Joe and Aaron pro-tem editors for now, just to get things rolling

but again, editors will be like mods: light editing, not to stand in the way of reasonable posts

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

So maybe the blog will serve as a place for discussing interesting questions, in a linear style. Nice!

Suresh Venkat

so what should YOU do to get started ?

John Moeller

/hides

Suresh Venkat

frankly, we haven't thought this through :), but I think one possibility might be a meta post where you express your interest in acquiring an author account, and supply an email address that we can use ?

Kaveh

6:36 AM

people can also post about papers and start discussion about them on the blog (which supports threading)

Suresh Venkat

@RebeccaChernoff can you suggest a good way to enable user accounts ?

Kaveh

btw, here is a nice post by Aaron: nanoexplanations.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/…

Suresh Venkat

that's a great example. while not every post needs to be as detailed and thorough, every now and then it might be nice if there was one

Kaveh

actually the system allow creating contributer accounts, they can write posts but for publishing on the blog they need approval by one of the editors

that seems a good way to me

Suresh Venkat

yes

Rebecca Chernoff

6:38 AM

@SureshVenkat how do you mean? you have access to add users. (:

Kaveh

but drafting them on the meta also seems OK

Suresh Venkat

yes, but I mean I need to know who to add

hence the meta suggestion

John Moeller

What about community announcements as an allowable topic? Like accepted paper lists?

Suresh Venkat

that would be excellent too

maybe even highlighting unusual results

John Moeller

As it is now those are kind of scattered across multiple blogs

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

6:39 AM

maybe a meta post for registering author and post abstract, like the paper submission system?

Suresh Venkat

we don't need a meta post for abstracts: because the contributors can write them directly on the blog site

Rebecca Chernoff

could always just create the account and let the person add their draft. contributor accounts can't publish.

Suresh Venkat

and then the editors can decide what to do

as a straw poll, who here would like to contribute ?

Kaveh

I think having a meta post where people can request a contributer account and a system message is a good way

Suresh Venkat

nudge nudge ;)

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

6:40 AM

looks nice

Rebecca Chernoff

you could setup some sort of schedule to help with accountability too

Suresh Venkat

yes

Rebecca Chernoff

on Mondays, posts will be about _____

on Thursdays, posts will be about ____

Suresh Venkat

I like the idea of a schedule. Our community works well on deadline :)

Rebecca Chernoff

hehe

John Moeller

6:41 AM

hah

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

lol

Suresh Venkat

so, what say you all ? any takers right now :)

don;t be shy

Rebecca Chernoff

SU (the first community blog) has categories like "question of the week", "interviews" WTFriday (crazy/silly stuff). There's an "editor-in-chief" for each category that helps make sure someone is writing a post to fill the slot for that week.

2

not saying you have to do that, the blog is y'alls to run...just trying to spark ideas.

Suresh Venkat

@RebeccaChernoff that helps distribute responsibility: nice idea.

Rebecca Chernoff

1 post a week minimum I'd say. 2 posts a week is a good goal. A couple communities tried for a post every day, but honestly that's crazy!

2

(plus who has time to read that many posts!)

have a couple posts timeless posts stashed away as drafts that you can pull out for a rainy day if there's a lull.

Suresh Venkat

6:44 AM

another topic that came up when preparing for this town hall: general etiquette/downvoting without comment: good or bad ?

John Moeller

downvoting without comment = bad

it really discourages newcomers

Dave Clarke

I agree that it's bad. One of the problems is that commenting combined with down-voting often creates an aggressive verbal response.

Suresh Venkat

@JoeFitzsimons asked on the meta site: "I sometimes downvote without comment and simply +1 an existing reason that I agree with. Is this bad form?"

John Moeller

I think that works as a substitute

Suresh Venkat

as mods though, there's little we can do: we can't reverse downvotes

Dave Clarke

6:46 AM

I think that is acceptable, as long as there is already a comment there.

Ryan Williams

Is there some way to force that you must have made a comment in order to place a downvote?

or is that even a good idea...

Suresh Venkat

not in the current system as far as I'm aware. In fact, SE has made downvoting less painful - no loss in rep

Kaveh

Actually I went over the questions with negative votes for the last 30 days, none was without comment. So I am not sure it is really a problem.

Suresh Venkat

ah

you are thorough !!

Ryan Williams

nice

John Moeller

6:47 AM

As for aggressive responses:

Suresh Venkat

all hail Kaveh

2

Dave Clarke

I'm not sure. Probably the point is that we should be constructive in our down-voting, to avoid discouraging new users.

John Moeller

I think it's a good idea (for the mods especially) to step in and encourage constructive criticism

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

A side question: When do you downvote a question? I had an impression that we only downvote if the question is in a bad form, and not if the question is out of scope by in good form

Suresh Venkat

yes

Kaveh

6:48 AM

ps: I only checked questions with negative total vote.

Suresh Venkat

I rarely downvote a question

I'm more likely to downvote an answer,

but even then, not very often

Dave Clarke

Indeed, discouraging new users is probably the issue we should be talking about, or at least avoiding discouraging them.

Suresh Venkat

but you're right, you should downvote for bad form

what are things we do that might be discouraging new users

John Moeller

I remember an instance where someone who posted a bounty downvoted an answer because it wasn't what they were looking for. They could have, well, just not awarded the bounty.

Dave Clarke

We can probably be lenient, encouraging, and constructive with our criticism.

3

Kaveh

6:49 AM

I also sometime down vote questions which are off-topic, questions that the user should have known to be off-topic if he/she read the faq

Suresh Venkat

@JohnMoeller Hmm. I missed that

John Moeller

@SureshVenkat It was actually very early on in the history of the site. I brought it up with you then. It was a while ago.

Suresh Venkat

i forgot now :(

John Moeller

I'll have to dig it up.

Dave Clarke

There was a phase of intensive criticism of moderators at one point, which I found very discouraging. I can imagine how new users feel when met with immediate criticism. Indeed, some of them voice their anger.

Suresh Venkat

6:52 AM

problem is that new users are often the ones with the most problematic questions

John Moeller

I'm not saying they're all perfect. I can think of at least one user that is a real jerk.

Kaveh

This brings up the next topic. Moderators. I have noticed that some users who were active in making decisions about the site has become less active in such matters

Suresh Venkat

I'm not even going to go there :)

V Vinay

Do we have any stats on what percentage of the traffic come from a search on google/search engine?

Suresh Venkat

hold on a sec

Kaveh

6:53 AM

I think it is essential that the feeling that cstheory is managed by the community is preserved. I am guessing some of them are not happy with the way things work at the moment. It would be nice to have some feedback (public or private). It might also be good to have reelections for moderators, say annually.

Suresh Venkat

@VVinay about 40% from search

in the last 2.5 months

and 40% from direct referrals

V Vinay

That is higher that I would have thought ... any examples of queries?

John Moeller

@Kaveh Well, it also has to evolve over time. "Founding Fathers" arguments aren't usually very constructive.

Suresh Venkat

top query was "axioms necessary for theoretical computer science"

Kaveh

@JohnMoeller :)

Suresh Venkat

6:56 AM

next was "hamilton path cubic graph"

and so on

Dave Clarke

I don't know how accurate this information is, as that query has been the top one for months.

Suresh Venkat

I should change the window

there was a weird spike on May 24

Dave Clarke

@suresh: Especially if it's broken. You know what they say/

Suresh Venkat

huh ?

Kaveh

@SureshVenkat I also noticed it. Someone has shared something quite popular I guess. Couldn't found what.

V Vinay

6:58 AM

I have been trying some "obvious" queries on google but have not managed to get any in the top 10 ...

Dave Clarke

@suresh: the broken window theory .... oh well.

Suresh Venkat

"certificate and detemrinistic query complexity"

I will frequently post a question on cstheory

and then do a google search two minutes later and it's already on the top

we're getting about 5000 page views/day

Dave Clarke

It's amazing how quickly google gets access to the questions.

V Vinay

The ham cubic path is 11th ... though the axioms stuff is on top

Kaveh

@VVinay funny, because each time I tried to search for a paper to put a link to it the first result has been the question itself!

2

Suresh Venkat

6:58 AM

in a cyclical way

maybe more like 4000

V Vinay

@suresh ... if you know the question to ask, you will find it on top!

Suresh Venkat

he he: atleast this means the site is indexed frequently

arnab

i've also noticed that. i didn't know answering a question by suresh would cause my answer to be near the top of google for "dual bch codes":)

Suresh Venkat

also, I've seen answers where some one said "I was googling around and saw that you were looking for my paper on so and so"

@arnab, that's because of my awesome google mojo ;)

anyway, it's time for this chat to be over.

V Vinay

Anyways, while I understand we are a research site etc, most standard theory stuff will not be found on our site .... should be do any thing about this?

Suresh Venkat

7:01 AM

Thanks all for coming, and please spread the word for the next chat in about 10 hrs from now

@VVinay you mean more basic material ?

John Moeller

Thanks for answering the questions

V Vinay

even "pcp theorem" show no result from the site in the top 50

Suresh Venkat

hmmm

maybe a topic for the next chat :)

V Vinay

sure.

Suresh Venkat

changing the scope a bit ? to allow slightly more "elementary" questions

although calling the PCP theorem "elementary" is kind of funny

2

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

7:02 AM

Thanks for all your hard work on managing the site. We all appreciate it!

Suresh Venkat

just keep coming back, ask questions, answer them, and make you friends come too !

Dave Clarke

Certainly lowering the bar for entry would be a good idea to discuss.

in 10 hours.

V Vinay

we can take it up 10 hours later ... thanks. bye.

Suresh Venkat

Kaveh ? you're around for the next one right ?

Kaveh

@SureshVenkat yes, I will come.

Suresh Venkat

7:04 AM

ok bye all

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

See you all in 10 hours, bye!

Suresh Venkat

@RebeccaChernoff how do we get a link to a transcript ?

Ryan Williams

bye

Rebecca Chernoff

it is in the "room" menu to bookmark a conversation

Kaveh

Btw, if you have any points you want to bring up but can't attend the next meeting just post it in the meantime. (In particular, any opinions on this?).

Suresh Venkat

7:07 AM

@RebeccaChernoff hmm. I did the bookmarking, but then how do I get a link to the bookmarked chat ?

Rebecca Chernoff

go to the conversations tab on the info page

Suresh Venkat

ah yes

Rebecca Chernoff

(:

Kaveh

bye all and see you in the next meeting. :)

Suresh Venkat

3:41 PM

Hi @JoeFitzsimons

Joe Fitzsimons

4:17 PM

Hi Suresh. Sorry I missed the townhall (and am about to miss the next one).

Suresh Venkat

bummer

i posted on meta about the blog. once the town hall is over we'll put in a system message as well

John Moeller

Part of me wants to say, "yeah, I'll write a blog post!" The other part of me realizes that would be a really dumb idea right now.

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

@JohnMoeller +10

John Moeller

4:34 PM

Haha. I feel bad though, because blog contributors are something cstheory.se really needs right now.

Joe Fitzsimons

@John: Why would it be a dumb idea?

By the way, I notice that there are a lot of us on Google+ at the moment. Would it be a good idea to possible compile a list? We don't really have a very good way to communicate directly at the moment.

2

John Moeller

@JoeFitzsimons For me. I've got a conference coming up in five weeks that I need to prepare for, in addition to other academic things that I've been slacking on, and also I'll be trying to sell a car and move at the end of the month.

@John: Ah I see.

Hi everybody.

Hi Aaron

4:43 PM

Hi to everyone

Aaron Sterling

Hi Oleksandr

Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之

4:58 PM

Hi all

Transcript for