What on Earth?

12:04 AM

interesting

=\ i've never met Dan McKenzie

he must be a cool person

He really, really is. Bought us chocolate cake for the middle of the two-hour lecture he gives at the beginning of third year that's all calculus. :-)

Neo

lol

hichris123

2:37 AM

@blunders Thank you. ;) It's going to be an interesting time... to say the least. :P

EnergyNumbers

7:19 AM

@Neo eventually. But having a sufficient number of challenging, interesting questions unanswered at this time is ok - it helps bring in new experts. Getting most questions answered quickly is important, but so is leaving some bait on the hook.

Pavel

10:58 AM

@hichris123, you asked why What causes changes in the polarity of Earth's magnetic field? was deleted. I originally intended it as a part of Why Earth's magnetic poles are (and were) in their positions?.

Then tohecz suggested I should split it, thinking that changes in polarity and slight changes in the poles' positions are caused by something completely different. I didn't know, so I followed his advice. The answer to original question showed that his suggestion was based on wrong assumption, so I decided that having both subquestions in one would be better.

The answer wasn't updated to cover the changes of polarity yet, so it is possible to split it again if more people in the community think that it is better as two questions.

Btw, congrats to becoming a pro-tem mod! The same to @casey and @gerrit!

Stack Exchange

11:50 AM

0

Q: How to sort questions by views?

Is it possible to sort question by "most viewed" or "least viewed"? If not can we get that? Beginning of meaningless text so I can submit this question. Needs even more meaningless text.

feature-request

called2voyage

1:06 PM

@hichris123 @gerrit @casey Congratulations, new mods! If you need any help with the system, let me know! You might want to keep these numbers around: \@@ 103081 \@@ 27003 \@@ 101443 . The first is hichris124, the second gerrit, and the third casey. When you use two @'s in front of those numbers it summons that person into a chat room even when they're not logged in.

2

casey

@called2voyage thanks, and thanks for the summoning info

called2voyage

@casey Let me know if you're interested in having any of these closed questions at astronomy: astronomy.stackexchange.com/…

2

casey

2:27 PM

@called2voyage I'll take a look at those and let you know

gerrit

3:23 PM

Most seem on-topic, which is a necessary condition, but is it sufficient? I'm not sure.

Some would be duplicates.

kaberett

Hrmm. There's a few I'd like (astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/1950/…, astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/706/…, astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/933/…), but def not all; and I'd want to tidy those questions up a lot, I think. [is my tuppence]

Neo

3:56 PM

Everyone should watch the latest numberphile (youtube channel)

hilarious

casey

5:07 PM

1

Q: What is the furthest observable phenomenon from Earth that is Earth Science?

Given the importance of the Earth's magnetic field in deflecting most of the solar wind, whose charged particles would otherwise strip away the ozone layer that protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation - is the magnetic field the furthest out observable feature of Earth Science? Migh...

geomagnetism moon

would this question be a better fit on meta?

I see it as arguing scope of the site

thoughts?

gerrit

@casey The question is, but the answers are not for meta really.

casey

@gerrit true.

Neo

5:36 PM

@casey @gerrit I just think the answer will change rapidly, and be very hard to answer even for an expert

blunders

5:55 PM

So, it's okay to have a question that never gets an answer, but no okay to have one that might change? Find it very hard to believe that the answer would change on a daily basis, but do believe questions like these are of value, and help people think about a given topic. That said, really no point it having a question around that no one wants, happy to delete it if that's want people want.

(grr... comments can't be edited or deleted after x amount of time... "happy to delete it if that's what people want.")

casey

6:10 PM

@blunders my question wasn't one of whether an answer would change, but the answer does influence my interpretation. From the Q it could either be a philosophical look into what is earth science and what isnt, or a scope question of where does the scope of the site give way to other stack.

The answer on it helps tend toward the former, and as such it is fine imho

and based on your other posts I think if it were the latter, you probably would have put it on meta in the first place

blunders

@Neo: So, your answer is the current answer makes it okay, but if you post your answer in the comments (as I've requested) it makes it not okay, right, or have I misunderstood your comment above?

@Neo: " Everyone should watch the latest numberphile" - Processing... Result computed: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

Neo

@blunders you've misunderstood, its that the further observable "earth science" is constantly getting further and further away. Every time we launch a new instruments we see higher resolution and further from earth. Earlier this year was the first time we were able to view earth sized exoplanets.

blunders

Neo, if you're going to play devil's advocate (after all, believe you're the one that started the whole "No, no, no, it's much further.") - at least have a framework for making such claims. Throwing out random "What...Ifs" doesn't help anyone. My understanding is that the research you cited was real Earth Science research, and as such, "Earth Science research." Not aware of anyway to spin "seeing" exoplanets into being "Earth Science research."

Any rate, just don't see the point, either it stays, or it goes.

Neo

@blunders I wasn't advocating for removal. I was just saying that the answer to that question changes in time; different for example to other more established theories such as plate tectonics which is pretty much finished theory (mantle plumes or not).

kaberett

6:26 PM

On an alternative topic, just checking in before I post a question - okay for me to ask about exhumation of blueschist? It's a high-P low-T assemblage so has to form in subducting slabs; last I heard no-one was at all sure how we got it to the surface. Anyone want me to add anything to the framing/etc?

Oooh, also, we don't seem to have any questions on the current views on diamond formation. Or flint.

blunders

@kaberett Nope, nothing to add other that images and links are nice... :-)

kaberett

(Interestingly the biggest barrier to me posting questions appears to be that I feel like I should just do the research myself, heh)

Neo

That's how i feel to, which is why I don't post many questions

kaberett

otoh we need more questions, sooo shrug

blunders

Nah, just get the question count to 15+ a day... :-) ...who cares about answers :-)

gerrit

7:15 PM

Searching for an Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star seems like Earth science to me.

Spießbürger

7:48 PM

Since the unity of science (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_of_science) was proven, all academic disciplines and departments are just understood as pragmatic organizational units for training, research and instrument usage. Anything can be within the scope of Earth Science or any other science. The important thing is, if your research can contribute to the knowledge about that thing.

David Hammen

EnergyNumbers asked "I haven't seen that - where is it? Can you pop over to Earth Science Chat and post some links?" with regard to my comment on getting rid of the anti AGW questions and answers.

(How long to melt all the polar ice?)[earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/684/… The questioner obviously wants a huge number "so he can relax". He admitted in a comment that the reason he asked the question is "The practical application of the answer I am asking for is, of course, propaganda."

EnergyNumbers

@DavidHammen thanks - if you click on "share" under the question or answer, you'll get a link. Post it in a line on its own, and it gets one-boxed:

1

Q: How long to melt all the polar ice?

The answers to [this question][1] say that the sea level will rise 66m if all the polar ice, etc, melts. How long will this take? Transporting incredible amounts of heat energy to the poles and injecting it into the ice, a good insulator, so that it melts must be very, very slow. The Netherland...

sea-level ice-sheets

David Hammen

Here's another:

0

A: Ice Coverage on the Laurentian Great Lakes

It's unprecedented for March going back to 1973. It is not quite unprecedented; February 1979 is still the champ with 94.7% ice cover on the Great Lakes in recent history. What about before that? Measurements were intermittent and not all that accurate. Earth observation satellites are needed to...

At least to me, the questioner appears to be using the apparently unprecedented amount of ice on the Great Lakes this year as a sign that global warming isn't happening.

Spießbürger

@DavidHammen - I also think that the "melt polar ice" question is troubling. The question is worded in a weird way and the arithmetic approach is in my opinion meaningless to such a complicated system.

David Hammen

That the questioner answered his own question and got 6.3 billion years is troubling. Note well: I helped him get to that figure. He originally had an answer 63 years when the question was in the form of a not-a-question question, but he messed up on the math badly.

Neo

8:00 PM

who says the polar icecaps melt

what about nuclear winter ?

EnergyNumbers

@DavidHammen But the OP doesn't mention anything global in that question, do they?

David Hammen

@EnergyNumbers Look at the original form of the question, if you have the reps.

Spießbürger

@DavidHammen - The "ice coverage" question seems fine to me. Looks like he/she is interested in the weather phenomena and possible an explanation of what facilitates those extremes in the Great Lakes.

EnergyNumbers

@DavidHammen myeah, I don't see anything about global in the original form either.

Spießbürger

@Neo - The problem with the "melt polar ice" question is that the person asking is not considering a few thousand variables that are important to the system. He is basically holding a bunsen-burner to a ice cube and calculating how long it will take him to melt the Antarctic ice sheet.

EnergyNumbers

8:03 PM

But if there was anything bad there, that was edited out in the first 5 minutes after posting, it wouldn't appear in the record.

David Hammen

@Spießbürger Possibly. The question and later responses by him (I'm not going out on a limb calling DavePhD a "he" rather than a "she") made my anti-AGW nut meter go off-scale high.

EnergyNumbers

@DavidHammen I understand the need for a buffoon-meter on this site. But let's be wary of false positives too, and assume good intentions wherever possible.

David Hammen

@EnergyNumbers The edits were made hours after the original posting. You should be able to see it. He edited it 13 times, and only in the last edit did he clear out most of the junk.

Neo

At least we haven't gotten "How did god create plate tectonics"

Spießbürger

@DavidHammen - I didn't look at the username :) - In this case I would assume good faith (one of Wikipedia's first principles). You could also include this in your answer, that extreme weather events don't change the predictions of climate change.

Neo

8:07 PM

(no offense to people who believe that)

EnergyNumbers

@DavidHammen Hang on, maybe I'm looking at the wrong question. Are we talking about "Ice Coverage on the Laurentian Great Lakes"? I only see six revisions there.

Ah, I see 14 revisions on "How long to melt all the polar ice?" - that must be the one you're referring to, right?

David Hammen

Ooops. No, I was talking about "How long to melt all the polar ice?" That's the much more egregious question. My crackpot meter didn't just go off-scale high on that one. It is now permanently busted at "high".

Anywho, my original point still stands. Having this site be yet another "watts up with that" and having this site be a site for experts don't mix.

EnergyNumbers

@DavidHammen Ah, ok. Still, I don't see climate denial there. It is a preposterous scenario, and the OP's self-answer is not useful, as well as wrong, but I don't read any ill intent at all there.

@DavidHammen I agree with that. But there's already one "watts up with that", and that's one too many. And besides, that one is just a rubbish rip-off of:

denialdepot.blogspot.co.uk

(huh, thought that might onebox. I was wrong)

David Hammen

@EnergyNumbers - It's the questioner's comment "The practical application of the answer I am asking for is, of course, propaganda" (comment is to Peter Jansson's answer) that seriously pinged my anti-AGW meter. Up until that point I had my doubts.

@EnergyNumbers - There are lots and lots of "watts up with that" knock offs. I hope this site does not become be yet another such knockoff. That's my concern. There are a huge number of people who have fallen prey to the propaganda from the WUWT side, and they post everywhere.

Spießbürger

I think a lot (also high skilled) people have a very bad understanding of the Earth System. Similar to Lord Kelvins cooling estimates for the Earth, they tend to oversimplify and incredibly complex system. We should counter such questions with thoughtful explanations of the complexity of the system and its major contributing factors. Also explaining feedback loops seems like a good idea. Then people see that their milk-maid-equations are just rubbish.

EnergyNumbers

8:16 PM

@DavidHammen Ah, ok, that is a weird comment, yes.

@DavidHammen the trick is to retain the experts. That will keep the buffoons in a tiny, ignored, down-voted, closed, deleted, minority. We don't need to design out the buffoons. We just need to design in the experts.

Any public participation site can be subverted by mass invasion of buffoonery - look at the wikipedia climate-article wars. But if and when a site becomes a home for nothing but disreputable nonsense, Stack Exchange can and will just close it.

kaberett

(... people quite often dismiss what I'm saying with scientific basis/out of my expert knowledge because I am also crazy, by which I mean "multiple mental health diagnoses". Any chance we could use a different word to denote "Wrong About Everything On The Internet"?)

EnergyNumbers

@kaberett fair comment. How about "buffoons"?

kaberett

etymonline considers it ideologically pure ;)

(by which I mean: (1) fine by me, and (2) thanks. Lots.)

David Hammen

Another "quality" question:

1

Q: Is Mount Everest currently getting higher or lower every year?

Is Mount Everest getting higher or lower every year? By how much? I would like an explanation in terms of tectonic plate movement if possible. This is the picture of Mount Everest.

geology mountains earth

If you can find the correct answer on ask.com it's not worth asking that question here.

Spießbürger

8:31 PM

@DavidHammen - We might get the same "simplistic" questions, but we can still give outstanding answers. The current answer doesn't really go into the details to what the uplift is attributed. It could be isostatic, or changes in heat flow, a particular active nappe, etc...

Neo

@DavidHammen you don't want to go down that road. I tried making that point initially and it ended up pretty poorly...

Spießbürger

I don't know enough about Himalaya geology, but I am sure somebody could come up with something more profound.

EnergyNumbers

@kaberett ok, editing complete, "buffoons" (and one "preposterous") added.

kaberett

@EnergyNumbers <3! Thank you. Enormously appreciated.

EnergyNumbers

@kaberett (and I got to use the phrase "mass invasion of buffoonery", which should get more use than it does)

blunders

8:36 PM

@DavidHammen: Any question that is a valid question as long as it's a valid question. Just answer the answer, don't answer it, but we need valid questions.

EnergyNumbers

@DavidHammen Ah well, now we're into territory that merits a question on Meta: "should we allow general reference questions?"

@blunders Some SE sites allow general reference questions. Some do not. It's up to the community on each site to decide.

blunders

@EnergyNumbers: Yes, I know, and I've stated my opinion. If a question is not worth getting answered, then just don't answer it, and move on; goes without saying, all my opinion. There's no such thing as too many valid questions, just learn to use tags, filters, etc - get more mods, and move on; so many opinions, I have.

EnergyNumbers

@blunders That's cool. We do already have several relevant questions on meta:

12

Q: Are we aiming to be an expert site?

There have been a number of assertions that this site is aspiring to be an "expert site". I take that to mean that it is catering for experts in the fields covered, to the exclusion (to some extent) of non-experts. To that end, lots of basic level questions have been closed recently. I'm wonderin...

discussion scope

looks the most relevant

blunders

@EnergyNumbers: Yes, aware such opinions, though also think the analysis is flawed, and based on bias of SE survivors, not the real world. Sure Astronomy.SE thought the same, and their numbers are not any that I'd want to have.

Neo

8:51 PM

@blunders our numbers already look better.

David Hammen

Better? That's an understatement. This site looks fantastic in comparison. (The same goes for another SE beta site in which I participate. This site is kicking ***.)

EnergyNumbers

@blunders those numbers are a very small part of the story, and are a legacy of Stack Exchange 2010. It's about the community. Those stats were a first stab at measuring proxies of the community. They're not very good proxies.

Neo

@EnergyNumbers even so... look at our chat room... this is fairly active

blunders

@EnergyNumbers: Okay, so me an example of a beta that left beta without meeting those numbers.

(any rate... back to getting stuff done.)

EnergyNumbers

@Neo I agree - an active chat room and active meta are very important.

@blunders Here you go, quite a few candidates here:

area51.stackexchange.com/?tab=launched

see e.g. Christianity - one red, one yellow. By no means do all graduate with five green. Five green are neither necessary, nor sufficient.

hichris123

9:16 PM

@EnergyNumbers That. I almost feel like pinning that... but staring will do. ;)

Stack Exchange

9:49 PM

0

Q: Should we allow questions that ask "why"?

I feel the word "why" asks for an answer that gives a reason or a purpose. Is that appropriate for a Q&A about Earth Science? If you look at the questions on the physics SE site, I believe the occurrence of the word "why" in Question/Titles is much less frequent than here. This may be because ...

discussion scope questions

blunders

@EnergyNumbers So, "why" did they get to leave is the question, since one example does not make for a pattern; did a quick search and I'll found was Jin popping into a chat and saying he heard that Christianity.SE was going out of beta. Why did they get a pass? Reason I ask is that seems like the exception, not the rule, and without clear guidance on what is required, seems like SE holds all the cards.

For example, I know Chess.SE wants to leave beta; and guessing any beta in more that 90-days does too.

hichris123

@blunders Edited that for you to make it clearer.

Jon Ericson

10:07 PM

@blunders We look at a lot of details when we evaluate a site. We ultimately want (in more or less this order): expert, self-moderated, and self-perpetuating communities. The critical piece many sites are missing is enough great contributors to keep the lights on indefinitely. It's possible that smaller topics may never graduate.

Graduation is a big accomplishment (the big accomplishment), but we don't have any particular timeline in mind:

Blog - Stack Exchange: When Will My Site Graduate?

Robert Cartaino on October 20, 2010

At 90 days into beta, we’re supposed to evaluate each Area 51 beta site and either “pass” or “fail” them as full Stack Exchange sites. Some sites feel they’re not going to make it.

The Geographic Information Systems SE site has one more day of beta. We are Excellent in Qs answered and answer ratio, Okay in visits/day and Worrying in number of questions and number of avid users.

Are the admins planning to shut us down?

Please don’t! We may be small, but we’re good and growing. I’ve been working in the GIS field for almost 15 years and been acti …

gerrit

10:24 PM

@JonEricson Is it possible that a site never graduates? I understood that a site would either eventually graduate, or be closed.

Jon Ericson

@gerrit We do close sites in public beta. Thankfully it's not common:

Blog - Stack Exchange: When a Site Grows Quiet

Shog9 on April 25, 2012

In the lifecycle of a Stack Exchange site, we’ve long held the philosophy that “it takes as long as it takes” to build a sustainable community:

The simple answer is, it takes as long as it takes. We’ll wait. If a site needs more activity, go out and evangelize it. As long as your site shows steady progress and continues to make the Internet a better place to get expert answers to your questions, it will march on.

But when a site struggles to maintain any semblance of steady progress — when it’s struggling to garner an audience, a healthy core of experts, and a steady stre …

blunders

@JonEricson: Guess my point is how can a self-moderated, self-perpetuating community with experts know that it's what SE defines as such? (If the answer is asking SE, that neither sounds like a self-moderated community, nor one that is self-perpetuating; meaning to be self-perpetuating, you must, in my opinion, have clear, measurable goals that align to the needs of the experts.)

(Just in case it's not clear, all the content you're linking to above, I have read before.)

gerrit

@JonEricson I know that you do close sites in public beta. I misphrased my question. Is it possible that a site never graduates and never closes?

Jon Ericson

@blunders The Area 51 stats are a good start, actually. We don't emphasize them, however since people tend to work toward the numbers in an unhealthy way.

More reading:

12

Q: Getting a clear picture on Area 51 beta statistics

This is what the Area 51 stats look like for a certain site I care about: I've circled the two stats that are "treadmill stats"—they don't build over time, but require constant work to maintain. The "questions per day" stat represents a serious treadmill for users since they can actually do s...

feature-request area51 statistics beta-phase

gerrit

Area51 doesn't indicate the participation of experts.

Jon Ericson

10:33 PM

@gerrit Due to the second law of thermodynamics, every site will close. ;-)

But we don't have a timetable on graduation.

blunders

True, guess there's no point.

So, how do you measure sites?

Jon Ericson

@blunders Just to circle back on this, one of the reasons we decide when a site graduates is that it costs designer time. We prioritize graduating sites that have the best long-term prospects. (Or to put it another way, we take the risk of investing in them, so we get to make the decisions. ;-)

@blunders Site evaluations are one thing I look at. Is the site making the internet a better place to find the answer to questions on a site's topic?

blunders

Designer time is cheap; too funny.

Jon Ericson

@blunders Not if you hire good ones. ;-)

hichris123

Like Jin. And the new one... what's their name?

Jon Ericson

10:39 PM

We are a rather small company still. We have slightly more employees than sites, but most of our employees are in sales.

blunders

Yes, good designers are easy to find, if you're willing to outsource.

Anyway, even Google publishes there search quality rating guidelines - and what I'm getting to is that I have a feel that SE does sort of the same thing; or at least I would hope so.

gerrit

I don't quite understand the business model. Stack Exchange has a careers site and advertising on the busy sites. Where is the interest in graduating sites unrelated to its source of revenue, or in maintaining sites that will likely never generate a large number of visits? I suppose the answer might not be public.

Jon Ericson

@blunders Wouldn't know since I'm not the one who's hiring.

blunders

(Yeah, I know, hence the anyway.)

@gerrit: SE's model for now is growth.

Jon Ericson

@gerrit There is that. Christianity got a design despite not likely ever being a revenue generator. At the moment, most sites are cost centers. ;-)

gerrit

10:44 PM

So, I don't understand why SE invests in a site like Christianity at all...

blunders

@gerrit: SE didn't invest anything in it - it met their requirements, nothing more, nothing less.

hichris123

@gerrit If I understand correctly, SE isn't designed to be a huge company. It's designed to help people get good information.

Jon Ericson

@gerrit I think Joel once pointed out that if you get enough verticals you look like a horizontal. We take our mission of making the internet a better place for expert answers seriously. I think that's an important part of why people trust us enough to invest their own time and energy into our sites.

blunders

@hichris123: Guessing that's not true, given they've raised capital, and must reach an exit at some point.

Yeah, just checked, they've raised at least $18M - means they like need to make at least an $180M exit.

Jon Ericson

@blunders Somebody thinks Quora is worth $900 million. ;-)

hichris123

10:52 PM

ಠ_ಠ

blunders

@JonEricson: In the end, doesn't matter what people think, what matters to finding someone to buy.

@JonEricson Okay, just to be clear, you understand I am asking how exactly SE decides to move sites into the buckets of non-beta or dead-on-arrival, and unless I am missing something, your answer is you're not answering, right?

(which is fine, just trying to address the topic.)

Jon Ericson

@blunders Well, the answer is:

46 mins ago, by Jon Ericson

@blunders We look at a lot of details when we evaluate a site. We ultimately want (in more or less this order): expert, self-moderated, and self-perpetuating communities. The critical piece many sites are missing is enough great contributors to keep the lights on indefinitely. It's possible that smaller topics may never graduate.

hichris123

@Pavel Ah, okay. Makes sense. Just wondered because it was a +5 question.

Jon Ericson

The community team has to reach a consensus and each of us look at different things. So... that's the best I can tell you.

blunders

"Just to circle back on this, one of the reasons we decide when a site graduates is that it costs designer time." - then let betas raise the capital to pay a designer; pretty sure some would be more that happy to do this.

"that's the best I can tell you" is what I was looking for; again, fine - just trying to understand.

kaberett

10:56 PM

@blunders if it's not SE designers, there's the obvious issue with keeping design "on-brand". Raising the capital is one thing; it doesn't actually help with the number of hours in the day...

blunders

Okay, I'm out... thanks @JonEricson for taking the time to chat about the topics covered; cheers!

gerrit

We are very very far from any possible graduation. I don't expect anything within 2 years at least. We need to build a community first. Earth science is very broad.

I don't seem to be able to add a bounty for meta.earthscience.stackexchange.com/q/156/6

hichris123

Yeah, apparently you can't bounty per-site meta questions.

gerrit

I'd like to draw more attention to it

I'm not good at writing and haven't had the time

hichris123

Hm...

Only way I know of is to feature it.

Or make an edit to it.

Neo

11:08 PM

Does it really matter if we graduate; more important not to get shutdown if the site is good

Neo

11:49 PM

None of the answers point out that: earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/562/… iron and nickle are more abundant than other metals higher up as well due to the fusion process, which is why we don't have osmium core

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