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12:51 AM
@Karlson Are you sure about adding [usa] and [illinois] to a Q that is already tagged [chicago] (specially when [illinois] has no usage guide and the post is the only one with that tag)? For example, a mod has written just use the most specific tags for the question.
 
chicago, illinois, usa, north-america, world, solar-system, milky-way, universe
 
But we are rationed to 5 tags per Q. :)
And [western-usa] and [eastern-usa] are presently available.
 
But @Karlson doesn't have a gold tag in those ;)
 
1:08 AM
That is an issue I mentioned with regard to 'visas' in various forms. So far there seems (a) no consensus and (b) very little inclination to seek consensus (which to my mind is unhealthy).
 
hey, the OP actually came back on the scam question
 
1:23 AM
Here is an example (admittedly Closed) of 5 tags applied. [usa] one of them (the origin) but not [india] (the destination). And neither [fra] nor [transit-visas], though they are at the core of the matter.
 
ideally the tag system could be hierarchical, but since that's probably never happening...
 
It is against SE policy but is being allowed. So I am confident we could choose a hierarchical one if we so wished (though still within the 5 max limit). However the worst outcome is what we have at present - inconsistency.
 
@pnuts Gold tag has nothing to do with it. But adding state and country helps searching.
 
1:41 AM
IMO as mentioned here gold tag is a factor to consider. Bag tagging does not aid searching - though question is whether adding 'general' tags is bad or good. I maintain it some respects at least not good (eg 'Closed' example)
 
@Fiksdal Mark is not restricted like the rest of us to only doing possible things.
the water filter questions are a bit silly but a few decades ago we would've made all similar kinds of jokes to questions about vegetarian and vegan food, gay-friendly hotels, etc
so we should allow people their quirks and only judge on whether it's travel related and a real problem for them
 
2:07 AM
@ZachLipton I wanted to congratulate you on a great answer about the Nigerian scam.
No, OP's hardly ever tag correctly. Why should they? Tagging is for us, the users, to search.
 
tags should be used to show contributors the most interesting new questions for them as part of a heuristic or even better part of a bit of AI
they are used to show the related questions and that does use other heuristics. and they are used in a very clunky way on SO to supposedly help users see questions they are more likely to be interested in
 
@hippietrail That's fine, but do you agree that OP's tag poorly?
 
starring tags you like doesn't do a lot, Xing tags you don't like greys questions out a bit in the feed which is a tiny bit helpful
well many OPs yeah
perhaps partly because of the few benefits they have. they don't reward the user so the users don't bother to get good at tagging.
 
@hippietrail Me too. It is a shite reality. Somebody asks a laser sharp visa question and then tags it 'europe'.
And if the OP's tags are changed, you do not get the badge points.
 
well those are drive by OPs and not part of the community
and it's not the only thing they don't know or don't bother to do right when asking here
 
2:20 AM
That is very much to do with the fact the even quite well established users don't know either.
 
@hippietrail Could I open a META question called "What is your pet peeve at TSE"?
 
Would we be limited to only one peeve each?
 
which is probably due to the devs not adding enough cool stuff to tags
@GayotFow: sure go for it
 
@pnuts one peeve per answer, and you can do multiple answers
 
you might want to ask users to divide their answers between their peeves across all of SE vs their peeves specific to TSE
 
2:22 AM
@hippietrail will you up vote the question and put in your answer(s)
 
Devs have not helped but there is a lot we are failing to do.
 
but expect heated arguments in comments to ensure where people rail against policies
 
@hippietrail no, very local to TSE here, your pet peeve on this site, including chat and META
 
maybe (-:
so lack of tag functionality couldn't be my peeve )-:
 
OK, I will compose the question and see what we get. Please do up vote and give an answer!
 
2:25 AM
i will drop by to rant and rail
 
@GayotFow Thank you!
one pet peeve: the revision history diffs for the "what countries have we visited" question are useless
 
my pet peeve is SE is not jumping at the chance to support our site competition
yes i didn't realize how bad diffs are here until that question too!
but that question is also useless d-:
 
actually my real pet peeve is a controversial one. I hate when a lot of comments get wiped out and are replaced with a "moved to chat" nobody ever clicks on or cares about
especially when those comments are useful and relevant
 
that's kinda the point. if they cared they would join. they usually don't care. if they don't care then it really was just a mess needing cleanup
 
0
Q: What is your 'pet peeve' in TSE?

Gayot FowFor terminology: a 'pet peeve' is something that you find irritating, but it's below the threshold of reactive annoyance. Or to put the question in a more positive light: What's the one single thing you would change at TSE? One 'pet peeve' per answer. Please give multiple answers if you have m...

 
2:35 AM
@hippietrail Have you tried 'side-by-side markdown'? I am assuming size is the problem - users are copying the existing text, modifying it and then pasting the result - maybe to avoid losing edits through clashes.
 
Please answer this one, and up vote the question. I hate the META effect
 
didn't see the option. might only be at the top or bottom so you don't see it when scrolled halfway down
 
If I click 'answer my question' does it then prevent other answers???
 
No.
 
@pnuts you can answer also, put in your thingie
 
2:41 AM
Dare I start with an anti-peeve? (I fear I may have rather a lot of peeves to add, if not beaten to them!)
Moderation is much better/faster here than on, say, SO – and almost as good as my recollection of Web Applications. Synonymising on SO can take years and still be outstanding. Tag renames (eg 'pluralising') simply seems never done on SO.
 
@pnuts would you put these in? There's probably a ton of people in agreement
 
There seems more tolerance of Comments here - as IMO necessary relative to say SO, SU, WA since TSE topics are less technical, on the whole.
@hippietrail If you click on the time of the last edit it takes you to the latest revision number. Just under that are three display options.
 
@pnuts: it's funny at the time we went with plural tags we were seriously under the impression that was the preferred way on SO et al. turns out now that we're the only SE site that does it. but i like it. it's nice (-:
@pnuts: i'll check that out next time i'm interested in wormcans
 
@GayotFow It is way past my bedtime, so I am deferring responding to 'peeves'. But that is convenient as I don't want to monopolise all the adverse criticism!
(ie give time for others to catch any in common with me.)
 
I like plural tags. It would be so weird to have for example, at least for anything not credit card related
 
2:51 AM
I like that we are consistent at least in that respect!
 
well we still have a mix: and
but it works
 
My guess is it won't be long before the latter gets added here :)
 
my pet peeve on chinese.SE is nobody votes
nevertheless
0
Q: Is there a better word than 生存 for uses such as "I survived the typhoon"?

hippietrailWhen I looked up the Chinese word for "survive" so far I only came up with "生存"? But the glosses into English 生存 cover "live", "exist", "subsist". This seems to be quite different from the common English meaning og getting through dangerous event unscathed. Is there a better Chinese word that ...

oh i just rememebered my biggest peeve! big mod jobs that we argue over, vote on, reach an agreement about NEVER get implemented!
 
Example/s please - (on meta).
 
looks wrong to me. but some things have official unique titles so it's conceivable it might be like ETA and ESTA not being plural
@pnuts: the big one was what to do with paperwork/documents/documentation
6
Q: Tags reorganisation around "forms", "paperwork", "papers", "documents", "documentation", "identification", and "identify cards"

hippietrailGrowing like we are sometimes gaps and inconsistencies reveal themselves in our tags. Sometimes it's better to expand a tag for various reasons and sometimes it's better to split a tag for various reasons. Let's have a think about this group. Right now we only have two of these terms as tags: ...

coming up to its 1st birthday soon
 
3:00 AM
@hippietrail thankfully many OP's seem to select on the first attemp.
You guys are not putting in answers!
For shame......
 
@GayotFow: should it be plural? also is it for just one country or organization? if so should probably squeeze that in there if it can fit to prevent misuse
 
@ZachLipton well done sir
 
well you guys cannot see all the other more important or equally important things i'm doing here while engaging in this pleasant socialising
 
@hippietrail Yes it can be plural, and applicable to the UK only. It is a piece of legislation
 
uk is very easy to add since it only requires 2 to 4 characters including hyphens
shall i put in a rename request to ? or ?
 
3:04 AM
I think it's fine as , that's a proper name
bonus points to anybody who gets the literary reference in my tags comment
 
@hippietrail That's fine, but remember it departs from the official name. But the departure is not overwhelmingly disturbing :)
@hippietrail oh but please don't put the 'uk' in front! that would be inaccurate
 
@ZachLipton "Daily Life"?
 
@hippietrail there are variants for northern ireland and scotland
 
not sure what "Daily Life" is, so nope, afaik
 
@ZachLipton showed some yarbles and put in a widely recognized peeve
 
3:12 AM
@GayotFow: if it's a proper name i wouldn't rearrange it but prefixing doesn't hurt. it's the closest you can do in a tag to putting (UK) or (for the UK) of (the UK's ...) in regular text
 
[Thornton Wilder reveals his sense of humor in this scene at the end of Act One: "Daily Life" in which Rebecca Gibbs tells of a letter her friend addressed, ultimately, to God.

Grover's Corners seems the center of the universe for the Gibbses and the Webbs. Little do they know that in the grand scheme of things, throughout the history of time, they are but grains of sand on a beach.](http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-this-means-101483)
 
hmm then i guess it's down to you and anyone else who might spot it to fix the misuses
 
@pnuts ah, you foiled me at my own game. I forgot the first act is called "Daily Life." The play is of course, Our Town
 
@hippietrail better to attend to the multiple schengen tags. And also make 'schengen' plural
 
schengens? what are those?
 
3:15 AM
better make the airport tags plural,
 
we already made the U tag plural
 
@hippietrail 'schengen' is singular, it's the name of a village
 
definite things don't do singular and plural. it's all in my thesis on meta about plural tags and caveats. everything as it would be in the title of a paper.
 
we also have the germany schengen and the french schengen and the global schengen
 
i assumed those were special visas all in your domain
all way outside my ken as somebody who enters schengen visa free and never stays more than 90 days out of 180
we need some artwork here
 
3:19 AM
I agree that's basically the rule: things that take definite articles (or would take a definite article if expanded to their full name) are usually singular tags; things that take indefinite articles take plural tags
 
there's also mass nouns like 'alcohol'
 
"A visa" vs "The Schengen [area/agreement/treaty/acquis]"
 
Man, you guys are way out there, but I suppose I agree
 
but there's also tag naming disambiguations and concessions because users would make a mess and there's not always somebody to volunteer to clean up the mess
we carring about the inglish
if is worth writting is worth to right in proper
 
@hippietrail I would be happy if you cleaned up the rep whoring (which Joe says is not rep whoring)
 
3:22 AM
u dont care how u writting i dont carring about give u the anser
rep whoring is for mods and devs
 
verpflichtungserklärung
 
rep is just a bauble to get people to care but that always attracts whoring. in the big scheme who cares since rep is just a bauble
 
You can see the english root words
 
i can see the latin and germanic root words and on a good day the greek root words (-:
 
baubles, bangles, bright shiny beeds
 
3:24 AM
@hippietrail Possibly my #1 peeve.
 
BEADS!
 
give 'em the old razzle dazzle, bead and feather them!
 
@pnuts: which part? the fact we have rep, the fact some people abuse it, or some other aspect?
it's related to the magic that is gamification
 
my other pet peeve is we always get the losers
 
That on TSE it is so much less meaningful than on other SE sites I have visited - and the impact that will have in the long-term. (But I probably need to explain further on meta.)
 
3:27 AM
And something else too.......
There are some crack houses and migrant camps in the old Paris beltway
 
gamification alters the cost benefit. people for whom the cost of participating is too high get the extra benefit of some seratonin or endorphin when things go twinkle or bling
i should've got rep for my beautiful sketch
 
There's also some enclaves near the Paris flea market
 
@hippietrail Is that artwork all your own work?
 
no. i took the photo, which is very plain. googled for a certain kind of sketch i had in mind, and plugged the two into google deepstyle
but considering how many horrible deepstyle images people make i've come to think there actually is a bit of art in it. the other bit is throwing away all the ones that don't turn out so good. just like photography (-:
 
As I suspected:) But still very appealing.
 
3:33 AM
i gave up drawing when i got my first computer at 12
 
unfriendly cities
For me it's a toss up between Perm and Rabat
 
Trump lost the debate and his poll numbers go up
 
the original photo looked like nothing but it caught my eye after i chose the sketch to use as a style and was browsing my photos for something that would fit it
i feel bad for any americans here
3
i feel bad for everyone else too but in a kinda different way
might be time for 自助餐
 
I haven't lived there for 36 years and I'm totally stressed about this election
I can't imagine what sentiments have been aroused in middle america
 
3:43 AM
long live President Camacho
even if he doesn't get it this has showed that democracy can be hacked especially the way it coevolved alongside dumbing down in education/the media
not to mention what will become of the conservative party
 
I might be going to Rabat soon, why are they so unfriendly?
@hippietrail as an American, I feel bad for the rest of the world too!
 
@ZachLipton It's the vibes
@ZachLipton plus you can't blend in
@hippietrail try Perm some time, it's the locale for Pasternak's Dr Zhivago.
 
 
1 hour later…
4:54 AM
@ZachLipton who's unfriendly in Rabat? I quite liked it there. It was a city with historical stuff like medina but without the tourists of marakesh or even fes
 
@hippietrail ask Gayot. He says it's unfriendly because of "the vibes" and "you can't blend in." I honestly don't know what that means
I asked him since he said Rabat was unfriendly and I'm looking at putting a Morocco trip together
 
bah i don't care about blending in unless i'm in my own country (-:
for most people it's casablanca that's on the must not list
but i even met friendly people there
i liked meknes even better than rabat for similar reasons
 
yeah I'm a white tourist, often carrying a camera, doing touristy things. I know I don't blend in
 
really low key. historic medina. no tourists. you can escape to the middle class suburbs if you want to feel "normal"
 
everyone says that about casablanca. maybe a half day on the way out or something
good tip
 
4:58 AM
the worst place to stand out as a tourist is the city where you get off the ferry, the next worst is marakesh because that's where the most marks are and the third worst is fez because it's the next must see city under marakesh
casablanca has nothing historic left. it does have a big new mosque. i like getting the feel of the actual place and culture rather than trying to reify tourist brochures. even casablanca has a medina and that was where i met some dodgy characters but also had a great time
beware the most beautiful girls in the world! they will flirt with you mercilessly just with their eyes from behind their veils knowing that you'd never come up and talk to them (-:
 
lol
 
i never bumped into things and tripped over so much in my life
go out to the burbs and veils are only on old ladies and the young hip ones are in tight jeans
i was there just after the 911 attacks and nobody knew who bush was going to nuke in retaliation. people were still awesomely hospitable.
 
it was really weird traveling in South Africa last month and everyone trying to figure out how to bring up the subject of Trump
like in a bar, people will just say what they think, but like drivers or guides or this woman who worked at a place I stayed. They're trying to figure out how to say "you're not one of those people are you?" without massively offending a customer
though given their own political situation right now, not sure it's such a shock
 
5:13 AM
they don't want to upset/lose a customer
 
 
2 hours later…
chx
6:59 AM
@RoflcoptrException travel.stackexchange.com/a/79688/4188 this answer also needs to be a comment or deleted outright. People can't read.
 
7:10 AM
thanks
 
7:32 AM
@chx I think jwenting just doesn't care. He often posts answers that are just wrong (and often racist to boot) and never seems to learn from comments.
I suspect he just wanted to boast about his father's permanent US visa, as he often does.
 
chx
well then ban them
 
 
1 hour later…
8:49 AM
@ZachLipton funnily enough here in Czech Republic Trump is extremely popular
 
9:05 AM
@hippietrail So Mark can even ban himself? Is that why he hasn't banned you for excessive trolling?
 
has anyone on Travel.SE actually been banned, save for spammers?
there were numerous calls to ban the bazooka guy but he's still active
 
It was a bit unfair to make fun of the water questions maybe, but the last OP was just pushing it too far, asking us to use Google for him and complaining in the worst ways when we did
@jonathanreez Maybe noone has been banned here. Site is too friendly
 
9:34 AM
@ZachLipton Cool, she came back.
So, we all know this is a scam, and everyone are dying to know exactly how the scam was put together. How did the scammers get the information? Where are the scammers? Are they Americans or Nigerians? What is going in with OPs finance? Is he alright?
Where is he actually? Is he still in Nigeria, or has he actually returned? And why isn't OP talking to her fiance directly? How does he relate to the scam? Some of the clarifying comments are a bit cryptic, deepening the enigma. Perhaps we could migrate this question to Puzzling SE? It's the perfect mystery.
 
based on my casual browsing of puzzling, we'll have the whole situation laid out, Sherlock Holmes style, in under an hour
(in spoiler tags of course)
 
@CMaster Haha.
I wonder if it could actually be posted there, if we worded it rightly?
 
I think you're meant to know the answer before you ask
I'm just waiting to find out where that guy is getting his Malaria Vaccination from
 
Right.
What??
Which guy?
 
0
Q: Should I get vaccination before travelling to Lombok (Indonesia)

Ferenc BerkiIm gonna go to Lombok in december. Would like to know if need to get vaccination against malaria or other diseases.. Thanks, Ferenc

 
9:39 AM
Haha, oh.
 
Bonus mystery: Why does Dianne Cruey decide to CAPITALIZE some of the WORDS in all of HER comments?
"NUMBERS"
 
Haha.
She is shouting that single word? For emphasis?
Like... I that's where he got the NUMBERS!!!!
 
 
3 hours later…
12:33 PM
@GayotFow Pet peeves? Really? :P
@GayotFow is my TSE pet peeve. :P
 
 
1 hour later…
1:52 PM
Anyone about that can protect Questions?
Protect this one please:
13
Q: How to book a flight if my passport doesn't state my gender?

kukisI am asking on behalf of my friend. My friend doesn't have a gender (in other words they are gender-neutral) and on their new passport their gender is represented as X (indeterminate/unspecified). Previously booking a flight wasn't an issue because theirs previous passports stated they are a wom...

already attracting abuse from guests
 
yes, done
 
thanks
I don't see why this sort of thing gets people so angry
but apparently it does
 
that's one thing
the other thing is how new users find these questions. do they spend their time browsing through SE to find such questions?
 
"Must find gender-politics related posts on the internet!"
"Must harass people I disagree with"!"
 
chx
I would suspect it's kinda viral
i dont mean it begins mass spreading
i mean someone who presumedly browses TSE anyways finds the question and puts it up in , i dunno, a hate subreddit, 8chan or other pit of the internet
and then the trolls come
 
1:58 PM
@CMaster Can't protect young questions unless you are a mod. Thanks @RoflcoptrException
 
yes probably, that's a good explanation
 
chx
google.ca/… this search shows it showed up in the sidebar a bit ago
so you can expand the above to someone who browses any of SO/SE and now that's a ton of people
So you don't even need it crossposted, it's just that SE featured it.
yes, it was in Hot Network Questions.
It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 28 Sep 2016 13:15:23 GMT.
 
omg. johns305 actually put sources in an answer
 
chx
LOL
 
2:21 PM
@CMaster honestly the person in question just seems a bit dumb to me, as difficulties such as the one in the question were obvious to arise
 
@JoErNanO put yours in for an answer. We need to see if there's any central tendencies. So far there are none with 8 answers. So get busy
 
2:34 PM
@JoErNanO now I learn you have a gripe, what is it?
 
I'm certain he was only joking!
 
@pnuts we should find out, he has been my ally for a long time
 
See 13:33 today.
 
any particular timezone?
 
@GayotFow Please don't catch whatever @astus has :)
@Berwyn UTC (in the chat above).
 
chx
2:40 PM
this should be travel.stackexchange.com/questions/79671/… nuked from orbit
 
@pnuts mine just says local time
 
chx
it is SO obviously a scam that posting it like this is obviously a next step to something
or if not deleted then a big red "SCAM" warning on top of the question and lock so it can't be used for any nefarious purposes
 
13:33 UTC was about an hour ago
 
@Berwyn How right you are! Sincere apologies (seems odd though). I'm GMT+1, s/b about 2 hours ago.
 
I see it
glad we got that sorted :)
 
chx
2:43 PM
it is impossible that someone is this stupid
 
I think you'll find it isn't impossible
 
chx
the photo is also obviously stolen and bent so that google image won't recognize it
I am reasonable sure the one being scammed at this point is TSE
 
hang on, what photo?
 
chx
everyone knows diplomats operate outside of the country, what the hell would a diplomat do with customs
@Berwyn profile
 
ah
 
chx
2:46 PM
travel.stackexchange.com/questions/79671/… this comment has the right of it
 
I agree it should be deleted, but I'd like to hear the denouement first.
 
chx
@RoflcoptrException still here ?
@RoflcoptrException we need a <> moderator :)
 
good point. wny on earth would someone put their photo up in a panic like this
 
chx
everywhere you look, it makes no sense.
 
what's the goal then?
 
2:49 PM
@chx the fact that the person claims to be from teh "diplomatic" service does not invalidate that the story may be genuine
yes, it's obvious nonsense, but it may be obvious nonsense that the scammer is peddeling
 
chx
this comment travel.stackexchange.com/questions/79671/… also makes no sense, no scammer would give a bank account information. For one, it's hard to do transfers like that in the USA, for two, it's too easy to track them
 
@Berwyn It might be 'acquired' through a gravatar (ie as used on another site).
 
chx
no, it's the poster who is talking nonsense
 
maybe this person and debbie are the same one
perhaps it's just TSE trollin
g
 
@chx Scammers in the UK are known to use direct bank transfer
 
chx
2:50 PM
yeah. delete and move on.
 
I can check if they are the same persons
but I'm not sure if we should just nuke the whole question
 
I'm not saying you are wrong
 
chx
in the EU you can do transfers like that but in the US? good luck.
 
It could be a real question that someone has
 
(the comments really don't read like a native speaker)
 
chx
2:51 PM
well they got their answer already so there is no need to keep this alive.
if there was a problem it's solved for her; it doesn't serve any other future "needs" except for scammers.
 
I see why you think it's a problem, but with this reasoning we could delete all the questions that have an accepted answer
 
also debbie mentioned something about her last question
but had no other question
 
and I can tell you, based on her IP, she's not based in Nigeria ;)
 
which country?
 
chx
2:54 PM
Most questions with accepted answers don't look like they will be used as a stepping stone in a who-knows-what-scam
The Cyber is hard :D
 
any connection between debbie and dianne?
 
no @Berwyn
 
hmm
Dianne has a US IP too?
 
@Berwyn I think they may mean the pre-edit version of the question
 
ah
 
2:56 PM
It changes quite a bit on edit
 
well, i'm not allowed to tell all the details, but based on their IPs, accounts, etc. I can't see that there is a scam
 
Someone reported my comment re: Malaria vaccine?
:(
 
but I definitively get @chx's point. I'm just not happy that we should take such a drastic step as deleting a question without any hard evidence
2
 
chx
Can you add a big red "THIS IS A SCAM" to the question to ruin it :) ?
I don't think i can change the color of my text
 
unfortunately, there is no appropriate post notice to add
well, she said she will call reagan first thing this morning. soon it is definitively morning in the USA
since I have to go now anyway, let's just see what happens today, and then afterwards we can still nuke it if necessary
 
chx
3:02 PM
ok thanks
 
haha
she semi-randomly capitalizes things on her FB too
Looks like a pretty legit profile to me
 
so the reason her photo is there is that it's her fb photo and presumably logged in via fb
 
3:52 PM
U.S. Embassy London informs U.S. citizens that the Metropolitan Police have notified the U.S. Embassy of recent robberies and muggings in central London. In several of the incidents, assailants riding motorbikes have tried to snatch mobile phones, laptops, and valuables from female pedestrians. If you are a victim, the Metropolitan Police recommend surrendering the requested items and dialing 999 as soon as possible for police assistance.
email from the London warden
 
chx
4:06 PM
wow
 
4:24 PM
If your mobile phone gets stolen, dial 999!
3
 
4:42 PM
wait, so now people think the OP is a scammer?
 
@ZachLipton Who? Debbie or Dianne Cruey?
 
I don't even know. It looked like some people thought they might be the same person
 
That was purely speculation. I think dianne is genuine
 
5:09 PM
My brother-in-law was detained in Jordan. He's a professional cameraman and went there to assist someone interviewing minorities, but as the authorities don't like that he claimed to be a tourist. When they saw his camera equipment, they disbelieved him and gave him a choice: enter the country without his equipment, or stay in detention with his equipment. He chose the latter.
 
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