@HodofHod i reopened the chat room for you

@DoubleAA Re: judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/34365/… Thanks. That's been a go-to essay for me.

@IsaacMoses It has some good primary sources and categorizations, but it could use more rigor in understanding and describing the charity as Kapparah aspect, as well as the causative approach through disciples instead of biological children.

@DoubleAA Are there particular conclusions you take exception to, as a matter of correctness?

@IsaacMoses Consider the case of mass mishna study "lilui nishmas" by random people. He places that squarely in the first category. But consider the case where they wouldn't have learned that mishna if they hadn't been asked to for this purpose. (compare different answers to judaism.stackexchange.com/q/5170/759)

consider too the q at judaism.stackexchange.com/q/80071/759

I also strongly doubt that type one can really only be sourced to 1883. Maybe not Rishonim, but 1883?? There's so much Kaddish type literature, particularly Kabbalisticly oriented, that it's got to be there somewhere.

@DoubleAA, a tie has no function? Its function is to make people look good. That's the function of many garments and (especially) parts of garments. (Plus, people use ties to wipe their eyeglasses, but let's ignore that arguendo.)

Oh, and a tie helps keep your neck warm: it's a layer.

@msh210 This is largely a semantic issue, but I mean no non-fashion function. A suit has a non-fashion function, and once you are using it for that you have to pick a fashion option.

@DoubleAA I understood that, but the question is whether that'

s the meaning of "function" relevant here. "Here" being in the context of

@msh210 There can certainly be machloket, but as I said "Indeed some prohibit ties."

@DoubleAA Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to argue with you, more wondering why on earth some prohibit ties.

Some also argue on what sabbahillel said "It is only when they do something because of superstition or avodas zarah."

כל דבר שהיינו עושין זולתם מותר וכן במלבושים אבל כל שלובשין מלבוש המיוחד להם אסור וכפשט דברי הרי״ף הנ״ל .... אבל מלבוש שהיינו לובשין בלאו הכי מותר

Gra to YD 178

It's hard to imagine we'd be wearing ties if not for gentiles. Pants, sure. Even jackets.

sabbahillel is referring to the maharik cited in the rama there.

@DoubleAA all is clear in SA

@kouty No.

Shulchan Arukh contains an opinion. But it isnt the only one.

@DoubleAA thanks

@msh210 I recommend starting by writing up a Meta post that lists or solicits a list of characteristics to investigate, including guidance for coding posts according to each, either by machine or by humans. We can generate a list of posts and do machine-based coding using SEDE, and then use human effort to apply the more subjective codes, then present a dataset that researchers can run regressions against.

(Incidentally, this sort of effort could be useful and rewarding for types of posts other than PTIJ.)

@msh210 we could also work backwards -- which were our most successful PTIJ questions (probably factoring answers in somehow), and what properties do they have in common?

@IsaacMoses Speaking of which, has there been a significant trend in post score site-wide?

....and if the downward PTIJ trend is matched by a downward trend in all site posts, we would need to investigate other factors than just PTIJ-specific ones

@Shokhet Good point. And those factors might not be specific to the Q: e.g. site traffic in the week following the posting of the Q may well affect post score in that week.

@MonicaCellio Yes, but doing it that way requires us first to set a demarcation line of "most successful".

@msh210 indeed, and it's going to be subjective and anecdotal. I wasn't suggesting we not take the data path; we should.

@Shokhet maybe. Here's the same query set up so you can select the tag, so you can explore.

@IsaacMoses I might play around more later, when I have more time. Looks like 2012 was a good year for halacha

@msh210 True. I wonder if there's a correlation between total number of active users in a year, and average post scores in that year