The h Bar

8:01 PM

@skullpetrol unless you can construct it, it doesn't exist

Unless you can write down a formula

How do I interpret this graph?. It's from Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths. In layman's terms, the way I understand it is that the energy levels of hydrogen would be where the $n=1,2,3,...$ lines are but we need to take into account the total angular momentum, $\vec{J}$. Once we do, we notice that a particular energy level actually has sub-components.

skullpetrol

What is your definition of a "formula" @0celo7?

loltospoon

It's about the fine structure of hydrogen.

Mostafa

what do they mean by "approximate symmetries"?

(I can't understand the last sentence in the slide. Any help?)

Emilio Pisanty

8:26 PM

Just so this doesn't go unannounced, I'm unprotecting this one.

@loltospoon it's not "taking into account the total angular momentum". The horizontal lines are what the first-approximation non-relativistic theory will get you

but it doesn't describe the real physics, which includes things like relativistic corrections (i.e. energy goes up slightly slower than $p^2$, by a term proportional to $p^4/c^2$) and magnetic effects

those are small corrections compared with the first approximation, but they still matter

they are collectively called fine structure

once you do account for those bits of physics, you get the line segments

0celo7

8:42 PM

@skullpetrol It should not involve contradiction or the Devil's Axiom.

@Mostafa Ok, Indians say strange words.

Lol, not Indian

Still

Who even says that

obe

what is your dp @0celo7

what?

display pic

what's that?

nevermind

gosh why is every science so interesting

dunno what to focus on

0celo7

8:57 PM

@ACuriousMind what does this mean?

Slereah

That is a proof

dmckee

@0celo7 It means that Hofstadter said it more entertainingly.

Slereah

I don't know what axiom 1 and axiom 2 are, but MP is Modus Ponens

loltospoon

When talking about perturbation theory, what does first/second/nth order "correction" mean? Specifically witht he word "correction". What am I correcting?

Slereah

I think axiom 1 is the axiom of simplification

dmckee

9:04 PM

@loltospoon You start with an approximate behavior and keep adding corrections until you are satisfied with the result or run out of patience/mathematical skill.

0celo7

@loltospoon $\mathcal O(\lambda^n)$, where $H=H_0+\lambda V$

Slereah

$$\vdash p \to (q \to p)$$

I think axiom 2 is the distributive axiom

dmckee

The order of a correction is 1 for the first thing you fix and gets one larger when computing the correction depends on the result with a previous correction in place.

Slereah

$$\vdash (p \to (q \to r)) \to ((p \to q) \to (p \to r))$$

loltospoon

For an unperturbed system, we know the energy. Next we perturb the system slightly. Now perturbation theory helps us find approximations to the new energy eigenvalues?

Emilio Pisanty

9:07 PM

@loltospoon pretty much

loltospoon

Ohhhhh ok

Slereah

The third axiom of that axiom system is usually the transposition axiom, btw

$$\vdash (\neg q \to \neg p) \to (p \to q)$$

With those three axioms and modus ponens you can prove all propositional logic

loltospoon

In reality, does the electron actually orbit the nucleus? Our orbitals don't really show it moving, so do we ignore movement or do we actually know that it's not moving?

Emilio Pisanty

@loltospoon what do you mean by "moving"?

is that something that a trajectory does?

loltospoon

@EmilioPisanty well there is a region where the electron is and a region where the electron is not. For example, the electron on my finger is not on Mars. If, after some time, it appeared on Mars, then I'd say it travelled over there.

Emilio Pisanty

9:12 PM

@loltospoon sure

but what happens if those regions never change?

is that a sufficient condition for "there was no movement"?

loltospoon

@EmilioPisanty yea I guess. But then you wouldn't even call them regions. But if we are talking about a nucleus, then there is a space around said nucleus that is devoid of the same nucleus. This is free space for the electron to travel around, no?

Emilio Pisanty

@loltospoon there is space, yes

0celo7

@EmilioPisanty this is an interesting paper

Emilio Pisanty

but there isn't any significant region anywhere close to the nucleus where you can say the electron isn't present.

0celo7

> 7. Why is Fermat’s Last Theorem true?

nothing!

:(

Slereah

9:15 PM

@0celo7 Man almost every proof you've helped me with on Jost were contradictions

If it's the devil's axiom you sold your soul to the devil a long time ago

Emilio Pisanty

@0celo7 well, it's true

0celo7

@Slereah Contradictions in real analysis are fine

at least for topology-of-$\Bbb R$ proofs

loltospoon

@EmilioPisanty is that because after some point the Coulomb force is non-negligible? I don't see what you're getting at

0celo7

Functional analysis uses AC, which I'm not happy about

Slereah

there's no axiomatization of the real that isn't weird, really

The problem deep down is just the notion of using real numbers as a set

0celo7

9:19 PM

what's wrong with them being a set?

Slereah

you are mixing uncountable numbers with concepts of sets which intuitively only applies to countable numbers

All different variations on the real numbers involve some weird unintuitive features

0celo7

Such as?

Slereah

well, you know

Axiom of choice gives you its famed weirdness

0celo7

AC is not necessary for me to have real numbers

I only need countable choice

HDE 226868

I desperately need someone who knows their stuff in quantum physics to comment on this answer.

Slereah

9:23 PM

If you pick the negation of the axiom of choice, you can partition $\Bbb R$ into more disjoint subsets than there are real numbers

HDE 226868

@DanielSank, you might be interested in that question.

0celo7

@Slereah Why is that true?

I've seen it claimed but never explained.

So I don't really believe it.

Slereah

Hm

Let's find out

Emilio Pisanty

@HDE226868 100% bogus

paper in question appears to be arxiv.org/abs/1409.0510 if that's what you're after

Slereah

Axiom of choice

In mathematics, the axiom of choice, or AC, is an axiom of set theory equivalent to the statement that the Cartesian product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty. It states that for every indexed family ( S i ) i ∈ I {\displaystyle (S_{i})_{i\in I}} of nonempty sets there exists an indexed family ( x i ...

"There exists a model of ZF¬C in which real numbers are a countable union of countable sets."

D:

HDE 226868

9:26 PM

@EmilioPisanty Been there already, but I'm trying to come up with something to say besides quoting Pauli's "not even wrong".

0celo7

@Slereah nothing wrong with that.

dmckee

@Slereah The next questions is (perhaps obviously) is it known if that set is exactly one cardnality bigger than the reals or not?

Slereah

"The universe can be very a strange place without choice. One consequence of the Axiom of Choice is that when you partition a set into disjoint nonempty parts, then the number of parts does not exceed the number of elements of the set being partitioned. This can fail without the Axiom of Choice. In fact, if all sets of reals are Lebesgue measurable, then it is possible to partition 2^ω into more than 2^ω many pairwise disjoint nonempty sets!"

0celo7

$$\Bbb R=\bigcup_{n=-\infty}^\infty [n,n+1)$$

(I hope)

Slereah

"If every set of reals is Lebesgue measurable then ω1≰2ω, but then you can partition 2ω, or rather P(ω×ω), into ω1+2ω>2ω pieces by putting two wellorderings of ω in the same piece iff they have the same order type, and all non-wellorderings into singleton pieces. "

@0celo7 [n,n+1) isn't countable

0celo7

9:30 PM

oh, it says countable

Slereah

The unit interval still has cardinality $\mathfrak{c}$

HDE 226868

@EmilioPisanty I appreciate the comment.

0celo7

@Slereah I thought countable choice was needed to prove that a countable union of countables is countable

is $\neg C$ also "not countable choice"

how do you do that symbol

Slereah

\fuck is not a proper latex function

\neg?

0celo7

thanks

Slereah

9:32 PM

Countable choice can be proven from ZF

So probably not

DanielSank

@HDE226868 What exactly should I do?

0celo7

proofwiki.org/wiki/…

The proof only uses countable choice

So something is wrong here

heather

@ACuriousMind what are you reading?

HDE 226868

@DanielSank Anywhere from absolutely nothing to writing a full answer, whatever you want. I just figured that if someone was needed to enlighten folks . . . it would be you.

Slereah

Apparently the partition of R is in this paper

matwbn.icm.edu.pl/ksiazki/fm/fm34/fm34121.pdf

0celo7

9:34 PM

pls translate

Slereah

Un ensemble de puissance n n'est pas une somme de plus que n ensembles disjoints non-vides

which seems like a very reasonable theorem to me

0celo7

@dmckee @Slereah should answer this

DanielSank

@HDE226868 Perhaps. The question itself is rather confusing. Any chance we can edit it to make it better? I already removed all the bizarre capitalization.

Slereah

A set of cardinality $n$ cannot be the sum of more than $n$ non-empty disjoint sets

Do u agree with this theorem

heather

@DanielSank, hello

0celo7

9:39 PM

@heather why don't I get a hello?

@Slereah I...don't know.

Slereah

The question is

If it's false

What do the other sets contain D:

Are there hidden real numbers

0celo7

No, Bell's theorem.

@Slereah how do you define the real numbers?

I don't think Jost bothers

Slereah

Well I've seen them either defined by the various axioms of fields or by construction via Dedekind cuts

heather

@0celo7 sorry =) hello to you as well

DanielSank

@heather Hi.

0celo7

9:44 PM

@DanielSank Hello!

Slereah

you can define them as equivalence class of real Cauchy sequences

errr

Rational

DanielSank

@0celo7 hi

0celo7

@DanielSank Did you know there's a differentiable function that is not the (Riemann) integral of its derivative?

Slereah

whaaat

DanielSank

@0celo7 What is it?

Is it defined by a series?

Is it that wacky cosine series?

0celo7

9:49 PM

You take a whacky sine and modify it on the Cantor set and take a limit somewhere. It's not something I can do in chat

Not the Cantor set, sorry.

You want a fat Cantor set.

You make a function whose derivative is discontinuous on a set of positive measure.

Slereah

How do you make a fat cantor set

do you feed it pies

0celo7

no, math students

loltospoon

What operators commute with the Hamiltonian for spin-orbit coupling? I think they are $L^2, S^2, \vec{J}, J_z$.

For a hydrogen atom

0celo7

yup

the first two are central

so they commute with everything in sight

loltospoon

@0celo7 I feel like I can't take that statement too literally. Like, if my professor asked me "what commutes with [blank]" and I responded "$L^2, S^2$ because they just commute with everything" I'd get laughed at.

0celo7

10:00 PM

@loltospoon But $L^2=l(l+1)$ and $S^2=s(s+1)$

so they really do commute with everything

Well...$L^2$ might not commute with something that changes $l$. But I'm not sure what that would look like

DanielSank

@DavidZ Is there any chance I could see a draft of that meta post before it goes live?

0celo7

@DanielSank imagine more of those oscillations in each "hole" of the Cantor set

Slereah

Is it yet another variation on $\sin(1/x)$

0celo7

yes.

Slereah

Is there anything this function can't do

AccidentalFourierTransform

10:06 PM

not with that attitude

@0celo7 you're a pussy. Dont delete your messages.

0celo7

ahem, I was banned for 90 days

next step is account deletion

GPhys

I should actually get used to cgs units

at least, my E&M professor is insisting

AccidentalFourierTransform

@0celo7 that's a risk Im willing to take

0celo7

but I'm not

AccidentalFourierTransform

Chicken Sounds (10 Hours)

►

Slereah

10:11 PM

>using units

Go back to engineering

0celo7

the other day I learned that there are $c$'s in the Schwarzschild metric

Slereah

yes

There are also $\hbar$ in QFT formulas

But nobody ever writes them down

0celo7

thankfully that never happens in math.

AccidentalFourierTransform

$h\nu$

Slereah

Let's use natural math units

$\pi = e = 1$

AccidentalFourierTransform

10:13 PM

$i=1$

all cosmologists know that $\pi=e=1$

I hate them so much

why are they allowed to call themselves scientists

0celo7

what?

DanielSank

@0celo7 ok

loltospoon

@0celo7 I'm trying to understand your explanation. You're saying that because the definition of $L^2$ is $l(l+1)$, then it commutes with lots of things? I don't follow the reasoning there because I'm still new.

0celo7

@loltospoon its a multiple of the identity matrix

David Z

@DanielSank I'm not saying no, but why?

loltospoon

10:26 PM

@0celo7 Ok then. So Physics Pages says that instead of $\vec{J}$ (like I wrote above) it is actually $J^2$ that commutes with the spin-orbit coupling Hamiltonian. Which is correct?

0celo7

@loltospoon $\vec J$ commutes with everything that is rotationally invariant since rotations are generated by $\vec J$

spin-orbit coupling is rotationally invariant

DanielSank

@DavidZ Because you recommended I write it a long time ago. I didn't because I wasn't sure what to write, and then recently when I brought up this topic again and wanted to write a meta post, you said "no I claim ownership of this issue".

Sir Cumference

@Slereah You called?

DanielSank

So either 1) You write a post and if I don't like it I'll say so and write my own, or 2) We collaborate.

I suppose either way works.

Also, I suppose given the existing history of meta posts related to the homework policy, I really don't trust anyone besides myself to write a post that actually asks a relevant and answerable question ;-)

Yes, that's egotistical, or something. I don't care.

loltospoon

@0celo7 in layman's terms, what does spin-orbit coupling even mean? I've been interpreting it as the relationship between an electron's spin angular momentum and its orbital angular momentum.

GPhys

10:41 PM

@loltospoon a longer hamiltonian

loltospoon

@GPhys ah ok, so that tells me that spin-orbit coupling is kinda like a correction to a previously accepted Hamiltonian of the hydrogen atom, right? I mention the hydrogen atom because my initial question was in regards to this system.

GPhys

sobs lightly into his copies of Shankar and Sakurai

3

HDE 226868

@DanielSank I just went for a run, so I missed your message. Sorry about that. I've just edited it to use the phrase "Is there a scientifically accurate way in which a robot with a quantum computer could get around the three laws?"

loltospoon

@GPhys IM SORRY!!! IM NEW TO QUANTUM MECHANICS!!! LMAOOO

GPhys

I guess it could have been worse

they could have chose Landau and Lifshitz for grad QM

Landau and Lifshitz is enjoyable reading after I mostly understand it

DanielSank

10:48 PM

@GPhys why?

GPhys

@DanielSank because I definitely understand the Wigner-Eckart theorem :P

0celo7

@GPhys o please

I'm doing perturbation theory with spin orbit AND a Zeeman term

GPhys

we did that last week

we're on variational this week, and now starting WKB

DanielSank

@0celo7 Wow, look at you!

0celo7

We did variational today

DanielSank

10:53 PM

;-P

heather

@DanielSank thank you

0celo7

@DanielSank I know right

DanielSank

@heather So you agree with that statement?

0celo7

@GPhys you should send me the results :)

GPhys

all of us got rekt on one of our variational homework problems

something about spin or something or another

heather

10:54 PM

@DanielSank to some extent, yes

i have a proposal, which is probably stupid

GPhys

or magnetic moment or something

heather

but what if we ran an experiment?

0celo7

@GPhys I'm glad I'm not a physicist

This class is terrible

The homework is draining my soul

heather

in practically every meta post hashing over this issue, the following close reasons have been mentioned

GPhys

our variational homework was actually pretty easy

heather

10:56 PM

well, honestly, basically the ones here

0celo7

We have two problems where the degeneracy is not removed to first order

heather

so let's just test those for a week or two and see how it goes.

0celo7

Quite insidious

GPhys

there was one with an electron that was annoying to get the guess state correct, but otherwise it was easy

@0celo7 at least one of our problems involved a 5x5 matrix of degeneracies

DanielSank

@heather ok, that's fine, but that is 100% orthogonal to the problem I keep bringing up, and which apparently the rest of the community agrees is a problem, given the upvotes on the associated meta post.

That problem is that the policy, as worded, is self-constradictory and generally confusing.

0celo7

10:58 PM

@GPhys Stark effect for n=3 has a 9dim degenerate manifold

GPhys

and I guess if I was smart and understood Wigner-Eckart theorem then I would have some selection rules and just know that most of the integrals are 0

DanielSank

I want to keep that problem separated from everything else, including experiments on new close reasons, surveys about what users think the homework policy should be, etc.

GPhys

but I just did 25 integrals

DanielSank

Let's fix the fact that the wording is obviously screwed up and stop getting distracted by all these other problems

0celo7

Lol

GPhys

10:59 PM

(well, not quite 25....even I can see the symmetry)

DanielSank

I already made a meta post asking if the we should reword the policy.

The question was upvoted.

I posted an answer giving what I thought would be a reasonably rewording.

That was upvoted.

So let's do the obvious thing and fix the wording.

27

Q: Should we rename the homework policy?

The homework policy is a constant source of confusion for new (and sometimes established) users. We see this confusion, for example, when users respond to closures based on the homework policy by defending their post with "This is not a homework problem", or similar. Some users have even been con...

^ That

heather

@DanielSank better point

DanielSank

Note that this meta post actually asks a question without lumping the proposed answer into the question.

I really wish other meta-users would do that.

heather

my question: why the heck hasn't this happened?

DanielSank

I am struggling to answer you without using a list of swear words...

Please note, anyone reading this, that in meta, it's very helpful to ask a question without lumping your opinion about an answer into that question.

This allows people to upvote the question, indicating "yes, we should think about this", without having to indicate that they agree with your proposed answer.

Note also that both my question and answer were generally upvoted.

@heather Because various people took my meta post and decided to engage in a chain of related meta posts ultimately culminating in one asking about the point of the site (which I think you wrote).

In other words, we decided to chase our tails around instead of actually fixing the obvious problem.

I talked to DZ about this. he said "ok, make another meta post". I thought about it for a long time, and then when I brought it up again he said "don't make a meta post because I want to do it instead".

So there's your answer about why it hasn't happened yet: I was slow, and now DZ wants me to stay out of it, which I find puzzling.

I find this somewhat irksome because in the wake of my meta post (linked above), DZ wrote several homework related meta posts which didn't even ask a clear question, so now I'm disinclined to trust him to write a good one now.

I asked if I could see a draft of the upcoming post he has promised, and he sort of indicated that he doesn't want to do that, which I find more puzzling because if I were a mod I wouldn't want to try to steer the site solo: I'd want as much help as I could get.

Any of this making sense, @heather?

heather

11:07 PM

yeah

@DanielSank, I did write that post, and I now regret it. At the time, several people seemed in favor, including a moderator. Now, I understand it swerved the discussion completely off topic and derailed it, which I obviously regret.

DanielSank

Don't beat yourself up over it.

0celo7

my chat keeps reloading

it does that before a ban

heather

I guess, here's my end point. Surely it isn't that hard to change the wording of a few things? Ask the SE team, point to the upvoted-ness, and move on? (for a mod) @DanielSank

0celo7

Goodbye

DanielSank

Your post came after a chain of similarly muddying posts.

@heather I have had that discussion with DZ and ACM several times and they keep just ignoring me.

I even chatted with Shog about it, but nothing at all came of it.

heather

11:09 PM

what the heck?

that's...this reminds me of the politics fiasco

DanielSank

@heather I mean, they engaged in discussion, but then didn't actually do anything.

heather

::facepalms::

DanielSank

It's partially my fault because last time I talked about this with DZ he suggested I post in meta again, and I didn't because I wasn't sure what to do. I think I already made the clearest proposal I can in that meta post.

@heather Yes, I am rather frustrated.

I didn't run for mod because I thought issues like this one are supposed to be driven by everyone, not just the mods.

I occasionally regret not running now because I think I would have gotten a slot and I could have actually made progress on this issue.

Oh well. At least I'm not clearing flags ;-)

(I actually considered running to push this through, and then resigning right after, but I figured that would piss people off so I didn't)

heather

i ran, but then had to resign due to...matters. i'd like to run next time there's an election, though.

loltospoon

What is the result of doing $S_x L_x$ or is this not defined? The context is angular momentum commutators.

DanielSank

11:14 PM

@heather Matters? Age?

heather

and i'd like to think that as a mod i wouldn't really change in terms of how i listen to others or act myself.

@DanielSank no

i don't mind telling you, but i'd rather it wasn't blatantly public knowledge.

DanielSank

ok

you have my gchat

Remember you can turn history off in gchat too!

heather

::shrugs:: i don't need to do that =)

g = gmail, right?

DanielSank

@heather The chat box thingy in gmail, yeah.

David Z

@DanielSank well, what I said was that you can if you want to, but I intend to make one that will probably cover what you would write in yours.

DanielSank

11:28 PM

@DavidZ Yes, and to avoid confusing duplication I proposed some level of collaboration, which as far as I can tell, you are not interested in. Is that correct?

David Z

It's a meta post. Of course there will be collaboration.

heather

collaboration in its writing, @DavidZ

and I think that would be ideal

David Z

Yes, of course

DanielSank

@DavidZ You know what? I can't help feeling like you're being intentionally difficult. I'm obviously talking about collaborating on the question.

...and I've felt like every time we've discussed this issue you've been intentionally difficult, and I'm so frustrated about it that I'm going to leave before I get suspended.

Bye.

David Z

Uh, sure

heather

11:30 PM

to be honest @DavidZ, that was a pretty classic "being intentionally difficult" move

David Z

What was?

heather

i'm surprised you're taking the "uh, sure" stance.

@DavidZ "It's a meta post. Of course there will be collaboration."

and, also being honest, most times the mods talk about the homework policy (or much of anything, recently) they feel like this: uncollaborative, and acting beyond their powers.

David Z

@heather Well, my intent there is not to be difficult, and I don't quite see how it comes across that way. But perhaps it would help to clarify that this is one of those meta posts that will be particularly open to revisions after it gets posted.

As opposed to someone asking a basic question about site usage, for example.

@heather For what it's worth, when I have a discussion about the homework policy, it feels like the opposite from my perspective: that the community doesn't collaborate. We put out requests for community input and people all offer their own, often mutually exclusive ideas, but they never come to a consensus on any of them.

DanielSank

@DavidZ Straight talk: That happened because the posts you made on meta did not ask clear questions. In fact, they didn't even ask questions at all.

They invited that kind of directionless propositioning by construction. We've talked about this before, and you even admitted that you agreed.

I really don't want to sit here throwing blame around, but we've had this discussion over and over and I don't understand why it feels like the first time every time.

We've talked about how those meta posts were problematic, you agreed, and now you're saying the community was uncooperative. It doesn't make sense, it's frustrating, and it makes me (and perhaps others) feel like you're not going into this in good faith.

David Z

Mind you, I'm not saying the community has been intentionally uncooperative, that's just the nature of group decision-making.

@DanielSank Let me ask you this: if you were to write a meta post about this right now, what would be the clear question you would ask?

This will help me understand your perspective on how this discussion should go.

DanielSank

11:45 PM

@DavidZ I would link to my previous post, point out that we've already agreed to fix the homework policy wording, and ask for exact, specific rewordings of the four or five things that need to be updated in sync. I would specifically point out that answers are likely to be edited many times, and that because of this, we should probably withold voting, or at least final voting on answers for a short time.

Shog9

This is why I've learned to just propose a very specific wording. Three outcomes:
1. No one cares. I make the change, everyone continues to not care.
2. Folks suggest small tweaks, which I acquiesce to unless they involve Oxford commas.
3. Folks suggest a major change in direction, and I scrap the entire thing.

DanielSank

@Shog9 I already did

27

Q: Should we rename the homework policy?

The homework policy is a constant source of confusion for new (and sometimes established) users. We see this confusion, for example, when users respond to closures based on the homework policy by defending their post with "This is not a homework problem", or similar. Some users have even been con...

discussion tags questions homework

David Z

@Shog9 So, you think asking "what should we replace the homework policy with?" is bad, and asking "should we replace the homework policy with [X]?" is good? (to oversimplify a bit)

DanielSank

26+ and 4- is pretty good for a meta of this magnitude, yes?

Shog9

@DanielSank ...your proposed change is in an answer, 10+ paragraphs down the page.

DanielSank

11:47 PM

@DavidZ I strongly disagree with structuring meta posts that way.

@Shog9 Yes, my answer is in the answer section, where it should be.

If you would like, I can copypasta the answer into a question box in a new meta post.

Shog9

@DavidZ Yeah. "Let's replace the 'homework' close reason with 'missing context and fealty'" or some such.

David Z

@Shog9 Hm, duly noted.

DanielSank

@Shog9 Funny how you're criticizing the post for its length (which is a legit criticism) but apparently 30 people not only read but voted on it.

Comment?

It's like you're trying to say the post is no good despite the fact that the users disagree with you.

Do you see how frustrating that is?

@heather can you weigh in here?

Shog9

@DanielSank I'm not criticizing it. I'm offering a bit of advice to David, and you're claiming you already followed it - you didn't.

Nothing wrong with what you did, it's just an entirely different way of conducting business, with its own advantages and disadvantages.

DanielSank

@Shog9 I didn't say I followed your advice. I specifically said I disagree with your advice.

Shog9

11:50 PM

4 mins ago, by DanielSank

@Shog9 I already did

DanielSank

I am super confused right now.

@Shog9 Ah.

I see.

@Shog9 But I did propose a very specific wording. When I said "I already did", I was referring to your chat messages up to that point.

I was not responding to the future. That would be interesting...

In fact, if you look at the edit history of my answer, you'll see that it mostly follows exactly he workflow you recommend.

i.e. the tweaking based on user feedback.

Shog9

@DanielSank You asked if the wording should change. And then answered that it should, with specific suggestions as to why and to what. Which, again, is all well and good, but is not just proposing a change.

David Z

@Shog9 My concern with that is that, if someone asks a question like "should we replace the policy with [X]?" then we miss out on other ideas which may be better. I mean, in general, our issue is like this: we have a policy, and we know there are some problems with that policy, and we want to fix those problems. If someone just makes a proposal and we have a Y/N referendum, we might replace one bad policy with another (hopefully less) bad policy.

DanielSank

^ Agreed

@DavidZ I should say, as I have before, that getting something less bad is good.

Shog9

@DavidZ this is where it helps to divide the discussion into "is there a problem" -> "what can we do about the problem" -> "here's what we're doing about the problem"

I kinda think you've already done #1 and #2

So that just leaves #3

Pick a wording & make it happen. Compare data in a couple of months & see if it helped.

David Z

11:54 PM

@Shog9 The plan I've been following was (1) identify the problems with the current policy (2) formulate a new policy that solves those problems (3) have a Y/N referendum on the new policy to officially approve it. I think these basically correspond to the steps you mentioned.

I made, or planned to make, meta posts at each step to make sure this was a community project, not just moderator fiat.

Shog9

@DavidZ yeah, pretty much. Just make sure when you're in #3 to make it abundantly clear that it is not the time for more suggestions out of left field; this is a yes/no question.

DanielSank

@Shog9 So if I copy/paste the proposed change into a new post are you happy?

David Z

@Shog9 It fell apart between step 1 and step 2. We had completely inconclusive results.

Shog9

I'm happy anyway; I have pizza.

David Z

@Shog9 I wish I had pizza ;-P

DanielSank

11:55 PM

@Shog9 That is not helpful.

Why are you dodging that question?

Shog9

@DanielSank this isn't about me. If you make a new post with a specific proposal and folks welcome it, then you're happy. If they don't, you aren't.

skullpetrol

Hi @Shog9

Shog9

'evening

loltospoon

Pizza is one of the only things in life that makes me say "OH GOD YES". And I'm an aetheist.

DanielSank

@Shog9 It's about you insofar as you came here and offered advice about how to structure the meta discussion. "Are you happy" is colloquial English for "would that make sense to you?"

Apologies for the lack of clarity.

Shog9

11:57 PM

@DanielSank it would make sense to me, yes.

DanielSank

Thank you.

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