the side question (which won't go on the mainsite I reckon) is "if a dragon (think Smaug from my Smaug vs MEU question) were to tell the leaders of the modern world to send a champion against said dragon in single combat, who would be best to choose?" (said champion can only bring one weapon or weapon system to the fight, BTW)
@Pete if this is about the off-topic, I used the normal flag-to-queue function, not the delete button. sometimes it queues it, and sometimes it immediatly takes my vote as binding too. I don’t know why. Anyway, if someone else is around and wants to flag it for the queue, I'll reopen it for that. This Q is blatently not WB though, but was getting answers as a cute/fun post, so it was important to not wait around.
It is a plot for a mystery story perhaps. But the Q also has other problems: it is not clear if this is meant to be a Phantom superpower, someone who's just a great burgler, a high-tech cloaking device, or just a silly literary puzzle.
Peer moderation is there for a reason. You can't just take it upon yourself to close a question. No one else had negative things to say, no one asked for clarification, there were no down-votes. No one else got confused about it's suitability for the site.
@JourneymanGeek So one moderators vote can kill a question, so at least that's understood and it's not a "sometimes queue and sometimes not" thing. Was this question so awful that it needed immediate closure?
@Pete I'm not going to comment on whether something's in scope here
I don't know the site well enough
One is free to vote to reopen
Depending on your site culture one is also often free to make a logical plea for reopening
I don't even know what the question is, and based of what I don't know " No need to wait for peer moderation then. Boom, and you're done." seems unfair to @JDługosz
But I guess, you can see the frustration I feel this morning though. I've been used to having questions VTC'd by a peer vote, but like this, not after somewhat positive feedback from users.
@JDługosz I'm not mad at you personally. It was just completely unexpected. I normally expect something negative reported by other users and downvotes. That's how questions normally go for me.
@JourneymanGeek I think it depends on the flag reason, or the posts's score, or Q vs A. There is indeed a close button that's supercharged for a mod, but that's different from the flag button. I saw the infamous fish tank meeme answers got queued by diamond mod Monica, and after collecting votes it still didn’t delete without another explicit action by a mod.
Hmm, it might have to do with tags too! @JourneymanGeek’s remark reminds me that I had gold-badge powers before becoming a mod. Votes are “super” in my topic, without having any kind of additional agreements. So, my VTC was the last one needed on reality-check questions when I went through the review queue.
I thought clicking close will put it on the queue if it wasn’t under review already (if not having binding close powers). Or do you mean that where you do have binding close rights (which isn't just “high rep” but rep in specific tags) you should just close and not queue? Makes sense on a big site where the review queues are big.
@JourneymanGeek so what's the difference between (non-binding) vote to close when it’s not in the review queue already, and flaging? Flagging lets you pick a reason, and just close uses the default. It still needs more votes so it goes into the queue.
I created a question yesterday which I believed was ok for the site:
How to find the man who isn't there?
This quickly raised some comments and answers from high-rep users and I received no down-votes, no negative comments, no requests for clarification. Five answers from 60+ views, so not too...
@JDługosz I see you just added the new "conlang"-tag to a few questions. I wanted to ask what the difference to the already existing and relatively frequently used "language"-tag is. The tag wiki states that "This tag is for questions about the written or spoken language of a world." which sounds to me like it already includes constructed languages.
Hey guys, I thought the review queue for "suggested edits" states that you need at least 2k reputation. When looking at the Review stats I can see that a user with less than 1k reputation completed a review. How is this possible?
@Secespitus I've done this a couple of times - if you write an answer (or presumably, a question) and someone else edits it, then you can accept/reject/edit the edit, which counts as a 'suggested edit' review
A few examples like:
Quantum entanglement
The solar system doesn't have its own unique physics
Destroying a black hole
With all of these questions I can see how it could be useful to use within a story, however there is no context of that story. No "I want the black hole to be destroyed so I ...
@JDługosz I don't particularly want to touch that question, but that answer is not correct. It doesn't matter what the net acceleration is; a massive object can never reach the speed of light and therefore cannot escape the black hole. The velocity of an object under acceleration $a$ is $$c\tanh (at/c)$$ which asymptotically approaches $c$, but never gets there. It's also pointless to talk about matter inside the event horizon; we have no way to know where any matter is inside the black hole.
the building where I work has a pair of dinosaurs guarding the door. There used to be more dinosaurs around, we had to hire a specialist to hunt them down
@JDługosz I've never flagged to close on Worldbuilding, or at least not since becoming a mod. Are you thinking of some answers? Moderators can cast NAA and VLQ flags, which send posts to the review queue instead of insta-acting, and I know I've done that (to get community review on something I don't want to act on unilaterally). Most mod votes -- close, reopen, delete, spam-flag -- are binding. NAA, VLQ, and custom mod flags are the exceptions.
(Also, I haven't read the whole transcript in here yet but happened to notice the message I replied to. Sorry if what I said has already been covered.)
@MonicaCellio Thanks for responding here and I want to apologise to all if I sounded somewhat strident. I'm guessing you see the basic issue that what was meant to be a close vote ended up force-closing the question. This surprised me somewhat as it seemed to be well-received in the brief couple of hours that it was open.
Peer moderation is there for a reason. You can't just take it upon yourself to close a question. No one else had negative things to say, no one asked for clarification, there were no down-votes. No one else got confused about it's suitability for the site.
@JourneymanGeek Reading it outside of my head, it does look that way and I apologise for the tone, especially after I realise that the closure was due to a misunderstanding of the tools at hand.
I appreciate that the intent wasn't to immediately close this question, and that was my assumption at the start of the day. It's since been proven not to be the case.
@Pete I got the gist of it, yes. (I'm still working on caffeine application here.) Moderators can and do use the mod-hammer sometimes; I'll put a question on hold if I can see that there's a lot of confusion, so we can get it sorted out before lots of people answer (and then it turns out that some of those answers aren't at all what was meant and now those people wasted time trying to help).
In this case the mod didn't mean to hammer it but misunderstood, and I see it's being discussed now. So a mistake happened, but occasionally we do (intentionally) use mod powers, and that's allowed.
@MonicaCellio I'm pretty sure you interpreted this correctly. Can this question be re-opened, or should I await the process? I'm also glad that this has prompted some discussion on the process and some understanding has been gained (always good to see a positive come out of a negative).
@MonicaCellio, @JourneymanGeek - As long as things are on a learning stance here can you explain (not write a book) what is meant by this "which send posts to the review queue instead of insta-acting" I get the contrast (part) Review Queue is more what I an interested in learning about
@EnigmaMaitreya there's a review queue for "low-quality posts", which are posts that have been flagged by community members as either "not an answer" or "very low quality". Users with enough rep for that queue can review those posts and vote either "looks ok" or "delete". Enough of the latter delete the post. It's a way to get community eyes on things that might or might not be problems.
I do not see you as going into melt down, you got an unexpected reaction that ended up in this case having a good explanation, shed a LOT of light on the process and seems to be heading towards a positive resolution. I know I learned a lot more about the process and options.
@Pete I changed one word in your question -- "how do" to "how can" -- to make it a little more clearly about capabilities not plot. I also looked over the espionage tag to look for precedents -- mixed bag there. It had three reopen votes, so I went ahead and reopened. It's possible that more tuning will be needed; please do consider whatever community feedback you've gotten or will get.
@EnigmaMaitreya Worldbuilding questions don't need to be about SF, though that's a common theme. Questions about alternate worlds, ancient history, not-even-remotely-human beings, and more are welcome.
@MonicaCellio I know I realized my error after sending it. I need to keep kicking myself until I get it that it is more about WHAT IF and thanks for your effort
I admit I am here for the SCI-FI questions and answers ... Yes I do admit that
@JDługosz Before I forget, I just want to publically apologise for being a complete dick to you earlier, I should have asked before casting accusations.
there is an important life lesson people could learn from web servers
Postel's Law (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle) applied to conversations basically says...write your own messages to be as hard to misinterpret as possible and assume the best of other people's messages and you will be much happier in life. Every now and then you'll be disappointed but it's pretty rare.
@TimB For long answers, I'd expect to see a summary at the top, leading into a deeper version. TL;DR by definition forces you to scan past stuff you don't want to read.
@EnigmaMaitreya You read the TL;DR. You then go "not my thing, not answering". You read the full thing you then go "not my thing after all, not answering" or "ok, I can answer that". I'm not advocating anyone answer without reading the full thing. I'm saying it might help people who won't answer find that out sooner.
Having said that in some cases you could potentially answer without reading the full thing. For example if someone puts the full question in the TL;DR and then the rest is flavour (and clearly marked as flavour). Although in that case I'd be inclined to edit and delete the fluff. Either it's relevant or not.
@DaaaahWhoosh Absolutly freaking true and there are a lot of SCI-FI reviewers that do that as far as I am concerned.
@TimB :) I understand the intent of it, I am round about pointing out that when passions are involved or people are involved in what they were trying to communicate they may not see the intent of the acronym and may in fact not even know what it means.
@TimB To be clear I am no fan of acronyms not at all.
@Secespitus I'm marking questions about conlang activity (as opposed to being that just use a language in a story) to point to them on the Area51 conlang proposal. I'm not removing the language tag; if we don’t keep them separate then it's easy to zap it.
Title: Would shapeshifting into a wolf through teleportation be feasible?
There are many theories about how teleportation could work (warning: tvtropes). One of them is that the body is completely disassembled on a molecular level and reassembled at the target destination. This leads to ethica...
it does seem like TLDR follows common essay structure, as either the introduction or the conclusion
I've been surprised where I've realized I could use my experience writing essays. Like on SE, some of my best answers have been written like tiny essays. And on Youtube, a lot of informational videos are structured as essays
oh, and also at work, with like presentations and work emails and stuff.
@DaaaahWhoosh Well, given the essay structure has been used as the optimal way to impart information for decades, if not centuries, it does make sense to structure modern stuff that way. Also, it's how many people are used to structuring things and people always go with what they know.
ooh, random worldbuilding idea: if you have an interstellar empire, you will have the opportunity to colonize worlds with different gravities. The low-gravity worlds will be easier to colonize, while the ones nearer to your home planet's gravity would feel more natural and perhaps have less health concerns.
so, like in old times the peasantry seems to have been shorter than the nobility because of breeding and/or diets. But in an interstellar empire, I can imagine a tall but weak peasantry and a short but strong nobility
essentially, over time you may associate being short with being wealthy or powerful (because only the rich and powerful can afford to live/work on high-gravity worlds). Which just so happens to support my goal of constructing a matriarchal society in my interstellar world
@Bellerophon because describing a plot in real-world has nothing to do with WB? With that precedent, we could just discuss all our plot issues here, including any real-world (modulo Hollywood) thrillers, mysteries, and drama. How about scripts for a show like House?
Somebody (other than a mod) should flag it as off-topic.
say, here's one for you -- if a dragon (think of Smaug from my Smaug vs. MEU question) was to tell the leaders of the modern world to send a champion against it in single combat, with said champion allowed a single weapon or weapon system at its disposal, who would be the best choice?
I want to request a new tag for WB,Character development.
Why do i think this tag would be a good addition? :
1 : Introverted people with lack of social skills have a hard time developing characters by due lack of life experiences,For example people who have not experienced love it will be diff...
I created a question yesterday which I believed was ok for the site:
How to find the man who isn't there?
This quickly raised some comments and answers from high-rep users and I received no down-votes, no negative comments, no requests for clarification. Five answers from 60+ views, so not too...
A few examples like:
Quantum entanglement
The solar system doesn't have its own unique physics
Destroying a black hole
With all of these questions I can see how it could be useful to use within a story, however there is no context of that story. No "I want the black hole to be destroyed so I ...
2017
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Title: Would shapeshifting into a wolf through teleportation be feasible?
There are many theories about how teleportation could work (warning: tvtropes). One of them is that the body is completely disassembled on a molecular level and reassembled at the target destination. This leads to ethica...
The Factory Floor
The Factory Floor