The Reading Room

2:02 AM

@DVK-in-Florida Writers is one of those SEs I keep meaning to join but haven't got round to yet.

I think Lit is going to be taking up too much of my time in the next while for me to even think about joining yet another site :-)

DVK-in-Florida

@Randal'Thor Joining a site takes about 5 seconds, what with unified logins :) The trick is to exert enough willpower to "fire and forget": join, ask your ontopic question, and disengage - don't participate in meta, chat, comments, or even browse other Q&As.

@NapoleonWilson When it comes to reading order, my main concern isn't whether there are/aren't bullets, but that the bullets (or non-bulleted text) have MEAT on them (like Terminator). Specifically, a meaningful explanation of WHY one thing goes after another in that specific order.

If I'm ever in a trollish mood, I'll ask a question about the lyrics to Louie, Louie. Which will either get me banned, or song lyrics questions banned.

Napoleon Wilson

@DVK-in-Florida Of course. That's what I'm talking about too. But a symptom of lack of meat is a bullet list where you can actually clearly see the bullets because they're all single lines.

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-in-Florida I think that's what Napoleon was saying too: he wasn't criticising my answer for having bullets, but noting that there was meat on the bullets.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

this site is so fun

DVK-in-Florida

@NapoleonWilson Ah, with that caveat, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

2:10 AM

I've done pretty much nothing else then research/answer questions for the last hour

Napoleon Wilson

If I would be in a trollish mood, the first thing I'd do would be spamming ID questions. ;-P

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

well, and eat

wait did we decide IDs are on-topic or that they are until further consensus?

DVK-in-Florida

@NapoleonWilson I considered doing that on SFF to make a point, but decided that my life (or my site stature) wasn't worth useless battles, and simply put ID tag on "ignore" forever.

Napoleon Wilson

@DVK-in-Florida That's how the bad guys win, though! ;-)

DVK-in-Florida

@NapoleonWilson I consider it detente, not a win :)

Rand al'Thor

2:12 AM

2 hours ago, by Rand al'Thor

@bleh Meta discussion is here. Top answer essentially says "They might be OK, as long as there aren't too many of them"; second answer essentially says "They're really good, let's give them a try".

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@Randal'Thor you chose not to capitalize your "the"s in your reading order answer?

Rand al'Thor

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ I'm not American; I don't put capital letters after colons.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

ah, afaik that's not an american thing

I just thought it looked nicer

Rand al'Thor

Yeah, someone told me the other day that that's not an Americanism but just bad punctuation.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

<shrug> fine with me

Rand al'Thor

2:13 AM

I dunno. Either way, I don't do it.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@Randal'Thor oh... well... erm.... ok then

steelersquirrel

Gheez. I have a bazillion pings from this room ;)

lol welcome back!

@steelersquirrel \o/

Wassssssup!!!!

2:15 AM

Hey @steeler!

@steelersquirrel EXCITEMENT is up!

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel I'm working on a book question!

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Yay!

steelersquirrel

OMG!!! How exciting!!!

Rand al'Thor

Heh, everyone starts speaking with exclamation marks when Steeler turns up :-P

3

steelersquirrel

Hehehe! I tend to have that effect on people ;)

HDE 226868

2:17 AM

"In other news today, exclamation mark prices skyrocketed after demand rapidly increased when steelersquirrel entered the chat room. Economists are not sure what the long-term effects will be on Literature Stack Exchange's economy."

steelersquirrel

Wait a minute. Hold the phone. Shog's favorite author is Poe? That explains a lot :P

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 We'll have to invest in more flippant and less classical literature, with more exclamation marks.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Exclamation marks are a waning natural resource. I fear that we'll have to revert to using malformed question marks.

Rand al'Thor

Or, heaven forbid, interrobangs.

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel I might have asked a question before you did! ;-P

steelersquirrel

2:22 AM

@NapoleonWilson Yeah. I suck. I have zero clue what to even ask :(

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@steelersquirrel the top bar of my browser

Rand al'Thor

Dammit, @EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ, stop answering everything! :-P

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

lol

TrojanByAccident

@Randal'Thor ‮Interrobangs are just fine :/

whoops

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

Mith left and I've answered 2 or 3 before he left

@TrojanByAccident #justdvorakproblems

TrojanByAccident

2:23 AM

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ Accidentally entered a unicode right-to-left

steelersquirrel

@NapoleonWilson I can't find your question!

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

o_O how did that happen

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel Hmpf, I'm still researching. It's about stuff I read ages ago.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@steelersquirrel yeah, the flood of new questions has mostly stopped. You can probably self-answer some more Qs from the beta page though

TrojanByAccident

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ how did what happen?

steelersquirrel

2:26 AM

@NapoleonWilson Well, you're all rolling up in here saying that you asked one before me...I just assumed that you already did ;)

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

3 mins ago, by TrojanByAccident

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ Accidentally entered a unicode right-to-left

TrojanByAccident

oh

accidentally

Rand al'Thor

@steelersquirrel No, he said he might.

steelersquirrel

Okay. I'm protesting the whole chatroom name. The Library is supposed to be quiet, people!! ;)

Rand al'Thor

It's never quiet where @steeler is!

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

2:28 AM

can't argue with that

steelersquirrel

@Randal'Thor Argh! I wish that didn't have to run off or I would put something together. I just don't want to throw crap up in here just to get a question posted.

@Randal'Thor THIS IS TRUE!!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel I said I might have, provided you don't in the meantime.

@steelersquirrel Awww, you have to go already? :'(

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

\o/ passed 500 rep!

steelersquirrel

@NapoleonWilson Let's see if you pass the "test" that you were dreading when I spoke to you last night...;)

Rand al'Thor

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ Congrats!

steelersquirrel

2:33 AM

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ Wow! You get your intelligence from my side of the family...just sayin' ;)

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

lol

Rand al'Thor

I forget - what are the 500 rep powers on beta sites?

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

thanks to both of you!

@Randal'Thor insta-edits

and only on private beta, it's 1k on public betas

if I repcap every day until the public, I think I'll retain them though ;p

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel Ah, birthday party for your colleague at the Portland City Grill, which is really good but also expensive, even for the salad you just want to eat.

Was that correct?

steelersquirrel

@NapoleonWilson Not for a colleague...but, close enough ;)

Napoleon Wilson

2:35 AM

@steelersquirrel Wut? Awww, I thought it was a colleague.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

hey somebody un-downvoted my post

what caused that

steelersquirrel

@NapoleonWilson No. I even told you who the party was for...

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ I just upvoted 2 of your posts...I will do more tomorrow :)

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

o_O thanks

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel I thought it was the Steelers doctor.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

no serial voting though

but that's a bit hard because I think I've answered a lot

Napoleon Wilson

2:37 AM

Hmpf, seems I failed the test. :'(

steelersquirrel

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ That's why I only did 2 today ;)

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

well thansk?

steelersquirrel

@NapoleonWilson JFC!!! You totally failed!!! You are so busted!! ;)

Napoleon Wilson

I'm sorry. :'(

steelersquirrel

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ I only like to give the same user 2-3 upvotes a day...just so that I won't be accused of serial upvoting. I only upvoted the stuff that I am familiar with. I don't want to show favoritism just because you're my son ;)

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

2:40 AM

ah, okay

thanks

I just asked 3 questions based off the beta, and I'm outta here for the night!

see y'all!

steelersquirrel

@NapoleonWilson I knew it!! I told you that you weren't listening!! ;)

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ Night!

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

Also, I don't mean to spam the site with answers/questions. This is just really fun to participate, and I'm asking the best questions I see on the A51 list.

@steelersquirrel night! gl with whatever!

steelersquirrel

Don't worry, silly!

Okay. I gotta go get ready for ~~my date with the Steelers Doctor~~ my friend, RICK'S BIRTHDAY PARTY! Dammit, Napoleon!!! ;)

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel Oh, but...but...I know who Rick is!

steelersquirrel

Yeah. That's where I am going...I mentioned it twice last night ;-(

Rand al'Thor

2:45 AM

Night @EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ! Good job on all those answers!

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel I'm sorry, have fun still. <groveling emoticon>

Rand al'Thor

@steeler Did you get Nevermore over here yet?

resists urge to superping @Nevermore

Napoleon Wilson

There was an interesting Macbeth question recently.

steelersquirrel

@Randal'Thor I haven't had a chance to talk to her. I will tell her about it tomorrow. She has the rest of theweek off work. Can I tell her to ping you if she has any questions?

Rand al'Thor

@steelersquirrel Sure. I'm probably less nervous of her than Napoleon is ;-)

steelersquirrel

2:50 AM

@Randal'Thor Hehehe! Well, I just thought that you were involved in getting this site off and you have been promoting it and stuff and you're super helpful with everything I have questions about, so, I just thought that you would be better to help her :)

@NapoleonWilson Don't worry. I'm just messing with you! I just want it to be known that you weren't listening... ;)

Rand al'Thor

@steelersquirrel Sure! I'm happy to help anyone who's interested in participating in this site.

steelersquirrel

Woot!!

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel Yeah, yeah, I admit.

steelersquirrel

Okay. Squirrel is out! See you guys!! :)

Napoleon Wilson

Have fun!

HDE 226868

2:53 AM

Does anyone here know French?

steelersquirrel

@NapoleonWilson See. I frigging knew it. I could tell. I'm not completely stupid ;)

Hamlet

@HDE226868 I know a bit, why?

steelersquirrel

@HDE226868 I know how to say one sentence and it probably wouldn't help you ;)

HDE 226868

@Hamlet I wanted to know if the English translation I used for The Little Prince is accurate enough. I'd assume it is, but I don't have a good way of checking besides looking at different texts.

Hamlet

Question: what are people's thoughts on editing questions/answers to remove spoiler blockquotes? The consensus on meta seems to be that spoiler blockquotes should be avoided

Rand al'Thor

2:56 AM

@HDE226868 Try Gilles when he's around.

Hamlet

@HDE226868 let me look

Rand al'Thor

Anyone actually in France is probably asleep by now, of course.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor That was my first thought.

Hamlet

@HDE226868 the translation (at least of that passage) is accurate (it's basically word-for-word)

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet I wouldn't, but that might be worth either a new answer to be voted on in that meta discussion or an entirely separate one.

HDE 226868

2:57 AM

@Hamlet Thank you.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor OK I'll ask on meta. It's just annoying to have to click on the spoiler blockquotes to read an answer

steelersquirrel

@DVK-in-Florida Hehehe! Awwwww! Thanks, buddy :)

Napoleon Wilson

@Hamlet If it's excessive, totally edit them out.

@Randal'Thor Like the people in Britain are?

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson And the people in Germany.

steelersquirrel

@NapoleonWilson Or the people in Germany should be... ;-(

HDE 226868

3:03 AM

By the way, I'm not sure if anyone's done this yet, but many thanks and congratulations to @Hamlet for proposing that Literature get another shot.

5

Napoleon Wilson

@steelersquirrel I'm unemployed and single, I can do what I want!

Hamlet

0

Q: Is it acceptable to remove spoiler blockquotes from questions and answers?

We recently discussed spoilers on this site, and the consensus was that while spoilers in titles should be avoided, spoilers in the body of questions/answers were acceptable, and therefore that spoiler blockquotes should be avoided. If someone posts an answer that contains spoiler blockquotes, i...

@HDE226868 thanks!

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 Yes! Sorry @Hamlet, I'd forgotten you were the original (re)proposer.

@NapoleonWilson You're single now? :-o

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Well, according to other people you can call yourself single when the other person still lives 8000 km away. ;-P

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Aww :-(

bleh

3:12 AM

@HDE226868 I attempted with my sparse knowledge of French to translate it.

Napoleon Wilson

So what was the deal with author tags again?

Are they encouraged or rather not?

Hello?

Haaalp!

Rand al'Thor

4

Q: When should I use an author tag?

If I my question is about a certain book by an author, should I use the tag for both the book and the author? Or just the book? What's the purpose of these author tags in the first place and when can I use them?

No consensus.

No answers yet.

Okay, personal preference then.

Rand al'Thor

3:19 AM

Which is a pain when I'm about to start creating tag wikis for some author tags.

user61230

3:47 AM

@HDE226868 @Randal'Thor @NapoleonWilson I've answered that question - I'd be curious what your thoughts are on it.

Rand al'Thor

@Emrakul Darn, I've almost finished typing up an answer - ninja'd again!

user61230

@Randal'Thor We keep doing that!

Napoleon Wilson

Sounds reasonable. That's how I would do it too (and how I am doing it on other sites).

Rand al'Thor

Posted my answer. Now reading yours ...

Napoleon Wilson

And that's also why I refrained from creating author tags for my question, even if a tag for Goethe couldn't hurt to shake up that English place a little. ;-)

user61230

3:51 AM

I need to go back and edit my questions... didn't follow my own line of thought...

Rand al'Thor

Heh, the first half of your answer follows just the same train of thought as mine :-)

Catija

@Randal'Thor Aren't you supposed to be asleep or something?

Rand al'Thor

I disagree with the first of your second set of bullet points though.

We want Shakespeare buffs to be able to easily search for all william-shakespeare questions, rather than look through the tags for each of the 37/39 plays in turn.

@Catija Talk to Napoleon about that before me :-P

user61230

@Randal'Thor Hmm... I see what you're saying. But the questions wouldn't really be about william-shakespeare, so maybe in that case specifically and/or ones like it, a general shakespeare-plays tag would be appropriate.

Catija

@Randal'Thor He's always up late... you... not so much.

Once again, the real need is a hierarchical tag system...

Napoleon Wilson

3:55 AM

Meh, I don't care what SE says really, searchability second, question classification first! Fo Life!

Rand al'Thor

@Emrakul So we'd have a william-shakespeare tag AND a shakespeare-plays tag? An edgar-allan-poe tag AND a poe-stories tag? A jane-austen tag AND an austen-novels tag?

That seems way more redundant than just tagging questions with both author and work tags.

Catija

I'm starting to think that I'm not going to fulfill my commitment... I haven't even heard of half of the books the questions are about and asking questions is not my forte...

user61230

@Randal'Thor You're right, that doesn't make much sense. But on the other hand, we definitely shouldn't use tags to mean something they're not.

Napoleon Wilson

Which is exactly why I didn't commit in the first place.

Catija

You ask questions, though...

user61230

3:56 AM

I'm a little conflicted, and I see where you're coming from, but I think preserving "tag means what it says" is a higher priority, to me.

Napoleon Wilson

Tags describe the question, not the work the question is about.

Searchability is a noble and pragmatic goal, but pragmatic considerations come after considerations for clarity and proper question classification for me.

Rand al'Thor

How do you define "proper question classification" though?

Catija

@NapoleonWilson Yes. The problem is that SFF has consistently ignored that and, if we adopt this method, Literature will do it, too... M&TV's much cleaner... title tags plus a tag that frames the question. Author tags should be for questions about that author.

Rand al'Thor

What makes categorising questions by work more "proper" than categorising them by author?

Catija

... which leads to the question... "Are questions about the author that bear no relevance to their works on topic?

Rand al'Thor

3:59 AM

I think a lot of this is quite subjective, whereas searchability is a practical consideration which is much easier to make objective.

On the other hand, it's ridiculously late here, so I may not be thinking straight.

Napoleon Wilson

@Catija Exactly.

@Randal'Thor Because that is what your question is about. You don't ask about Shakespeare, you ask about Hamlet. If you really ask about Shakespeare, then tag it as such.

And there the devil shall appear.

user61230

@NapoleonWilson I think this is correct. The Shakespeare tag is for asking about Shakespeare; the Hamlet tag is for asking about Hamlet.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson If that's the rule, it's easy for anyone to circumvent by simply changing "Why did Hamlet do XYZ?" to "Why did Shakespeare write Hamlet to do XYZ?" and saying hey, look, I'm asking about Shakespeare.

user61230

(Though it's actually funny that we're both in the negative, @Randal'Thor. I'd be curious to know if there's another option.)

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Well, when they do that, good luck for them. But until people start actively rephrasing their questions I'd not bother about that.

Catija

4:04 AM

@Randal'Thor Except no one can answer that question... well, except Shakespeare.

user61230

@Randal'Thor Those two are actually different questions. One asks about why Hamlet did something in-universe; the other asks about why Shakespeare decided to write Hamlet in that particular way.

Hamlet

For crying out loud, what is wrong with tagging stories by title and author

Catija

@Hamlet Because that's not how tags are supposed to work on SE.

Napoleon Wilson

@Hamlet Exactly what we are currently discussing here. No need to cry.

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet See, Hamlet agrees with me - now I just need Shakespeare to agree too!

:-P

Hamlet

4:06 AM

FYI someone asked a story-id question, it got downvoted, and they deleted the question

Napoleon Wilson

~~Success story?~~ That's unfortunate, I guess?

Hamlet

Catija

Can we talk about why we're making songs on topic here...? Are jingles next? Ad slogans? Puns? Where are we going to draw the line between a "work" and "words"?

Hamlet

@Catija The most important question about tagging should be: are tags useful? Author tags undeniably are useful. Title tags are undeniably useful. Seems like it's in everyone's best interest to use both.

Napoleon Wilson

@Catija Well, as I said, when songs are poems, movies are plays.

Catija

4:10 AM

@Hamlet I guess I don't see how an author tag is useful... but I'm clearly also one of the only people on the entire SE who doesn't follow tags or use tags to find questions to answer. If it's not on the recently active page, it doesn't exist for me.

user61230

Like I say, I can see the argument for using authorial tags as well as titular tags. I actually did that intuitively in my first couple questions - though admittedly, partially because I wanted to make some of the appropriate tags.

user61230

But I'm wary of treating it like a good approach long-term.

Hamlet

@Catija i use/will use author tags

@Emrakul it seems like a good long-term approach to me

@Emrakul Thanks for your waste land answer by the way

user61230

@Hamlet You're welcome! I hope it helps!

Hamlet

@Emrakul I'm in the middle of leaving some comments on it

user61230

4:16 AM

I'd be happy to help as much as I can. I'm reading the poem more thoroughly now; it's been a while since I've seen it.

Hamlet

Also, have you seen my question/answer here on the phrase "hot gammon": literature.stackexchange.com/a/177/111

user61230

@Hamlet I hadn't!

user61230

But I think it makes sense. If a poet goes so far as to mention a specific food, there's usually a good reason they picked that one.

Hamlet

@Emrakul it was pretty impressive how many puns he was able to get out of those two words

@Emrakul OK, I left my comments. I'm probably never going to accept an answer to that question because, as you note, there are many possible meanings.

user61230

@Hamlet That's fine, no worries! I've gotta think a bit before I edit my answer, anyway. I may end up having to revise my interpretation, too.

Hamlet

4:24 AM

@Emrakul Looking forward to it!

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

4:38 AM

eyyy another rep cap

well there goes all my rep until tomorrow

congrats on 500 @Randal'Thor also

BESW

5:25 AM

[amused] If we embrace non-Googlers but don't accept "I carefully studied the book" as sufficient effort for a question, what effort is sufficient?

Daniel Cann

6:19 AM

I think quite a few questions on here could actually be subjective to opinion. @BESW

BESW

I'm not sure what you're responding to.

BESW

7:02 AM

The Humble Bundle is selling a MASSIVE amount of Image Comics. Several of them I can personally vouch for, others I've heard Good Things about.

M.A.R.

@BESW I guess it would be a nice policy to close questions that can be answered by the material in the book

The answerer user base of the site can decide that well most of the times.

BESW

@M.A.R. That's not a very clear-cut criterion though.

M.A.R.

It is, if we propose that stuff that can be inferred from the book is not off-topic, but stuff explicitly mentioned, so you can even quote the book itself as an answer, is.

It's also useful to remember that it never gets 100 percent objective

And even when it does, it would mean that it might not work

user61230

7:19 AM

A lot of analysis is discussion purely on stuff that can be inferred from the book. People ask questions about it because inferring stuff from text is hard.

2

BESW

Yeah, assuming any given level of reading comprehension is going to shut out users.

M.A.R.

@Emrakul true

@Emrakul Hmm, so in your opinion, closing stuff that can be inferred from the book will cause the site to lose traffic?

Ankit Sharma

Good afternoon

M.A.R.

\o

BESW

I think it'd cripple the site completely, making lit.se a haven only for academics to argue about stuff they already know.

@AnkitSharma Hi!

M.A.R.

7:30 AM

@AnkitSharma Well, it's still 11 a.m. here

Ankit Sharma

@M.A.R. timezones sucks

M.A.R.

Like a vacuum

Ankit Sharma

ooopsss I missed "s"

M.A.R.

And now you should drop an ''s''

Ankit Sharma

No bot yet to post main site question or at-least meta

BESW

7:37 AM

@M.A.R. On scifi.se, reading the book is not necessary effort.

So discouraging questions that could be answered by reading it... would be silly.

I think we should probably have a similar level of acceptance.

2

Q: Should we embrace non-Googlers?

Common Stack Network policy is to embrace non-Googlers. The Stack Exchange wants to be a place Google sends folks, not a place that sends folks to Google. Unfortunately, many sites and some of our users feel the downvote reason "does not show any research effort" is synonymous with "did not try ...

discussion down-votes

user61230

@M.A.R. To be honest, traffic isn't my goal in it. My goal is largely to encourage informative, detailed answers. Simple questions (note: these aren't bad questions) can have great answers.

2

Ankit Sharma

@Emrakul +star for the word of wisdom

M.A.R.

@BESW I guess time will tell

Almost every site has its share of questions that are marginally on-topic but tend to get so annoying that you set policies to close them

@Emrakul Quality will bring quantity. And quantity will cause a decrease in relative quality

So the best case scenario here is that the user base creates a high quality set of starting questions and answers,

which drives traffic,

which will inevitably lead to a decrease in quality

And you'll end up having people go to meta and say ''Why don't I see good questions anymore?''

While the truth is that good questions have increased, but they look few among bad questions

user61230

@M.A.R. That's not a good reason to artificially lower quality from the outset, though. But on top of that, I'm not sure a prediction of an inevitable failure to keep up quality standards is a healthy way to start out a beta site.

user61230

I think you're right that it's important to be aware of, but I don't think it's inevitable. There's a lot we can do, and it starts in the formative period of the site.

M.A.R.

7:46 AM

@Emrakul I'm saying that there will be an inevitable fall in quality once the site hopefully gets popular

user61230

@M.A.R. Possibly, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. As long as we keep prioritizing quality over growth, we're a long ways off from that point. And SE has a lot of tools to help alleviate that problem once it starts to happen.

M.A.R.

@Emrakul And it slows it down, yes. If you slow it down well enough, you'll build a core group of users that will prevent the site's failure.

Heh, wait a minute

Did I seem to be on the perservationist side?

Well, let's not call it that

I'm a big advocate of quality control myself

Mithrandir

9:14 AM

Anyone alive here?

M.A.R.

Maybe

Chemicals are hardly considered alive.

Mithrandir

But they are

Sometimes

M.A.R.

Raises eyebrows

Oh, just remembered. I gotta change my avatar.

Mithrandir

??

M.A.R.

I just usually do

Changing avatars is fun

Now I'm trying to think which chemical to change to

Ankit Sharma

9:21 AM

@Mithrandir I still count myself alive

Mithrandir

That's good

If you are not secretly a zombie

Ankit Sharma

@M.A.R. I can understand that. That remind me I have to change my avatar now

Hello, there.

hello mick

\o Mick

9:23 AM

@M.A.R. waves

M.A.R.

So, which chemical to choose? SAM?

Ankit Sharma

@Mithrandir That I will never going to clear

M.A.R.

Oh, gotcha

I know what my next chemical will be

Ankit Sharma

I am confused between Cassidy(preacher) or Diego Luna for my next avatar

Not into chemicals

I should get rid of my current avatar which was for winterbash only

Mick

So. I've had my head stuck in science fiction books for the past 50 years. My knowledge of the English classics is very limited, and I don't quite know where to start. I read Far from the Madding Crowd when I was at school and enjoyed it, but Northanger Abbey bored the pants off me. I find Dickens far too descriptive. Whre to begin? And is this a reasonable question for the main site?

Mithrandir

9:30 AM

I need another Bookcase

Mick

You could make one out of all the books that you no longer read. All that you need is a staple gun.

Mithrandir

I need to have them available for this site :P

BESW

@Mick I use older books as tiers to stack newer books multiple layers deep but still see their spines.

@Mick I think that's gonna far too opinion-based for the main site unless you can more narrowly and objectively define "English classics" and describe what your goal is in reading them.

But you're welcome to make a meta post about it and see what the gestalt mind says.

Mithrandir

Wheee 444 rep...

Mick

@BESW That's a good idea.

Ankit Sharma

9:35 AM

@Mithrandir Maybe a rearrangement

Mithrandir

I picked up everything from the floor and stuck it on the bookcase to take that picture

Ankit Sharma

k

M.A.R.

Just changed the avatar.

Changes will take effect in a few minutes

11

Q: When and why did the Brothers Grimm start collecting fairy tales?

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are well known for authoring multiple collections of traditional folk tales in the late 18th/early 19th century. Their first major collection of stories was published in 1812. But when did they start collecting them and what prompted their interest in German folklore?

behind-the-scenes fairy-tales brothers-grimm

Ankit Sharma

k

M.A.R.

any reason you wrote ''Brothers Grimm'' instead of ''Grimm Brothers''? Am I missing something?

Ankit Sharma

9:49 AM

Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm (die Brüder Grimm or die Gebrüder Grimm), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), were German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together specialized in collecting and publishing folklore during the 19th century. They were among the best-known storytellers of folk tales, and popularized stories such as "Cinderella" ("Aschenputtel"), "The Frog Prince" ("Der Froschkönig"), "The Goose-Girl" ("Die Gänsemagd"), "Hansel and Gretel" ("Hänsel und Gretel"), "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin" ("Rumpelstilzchen"),"Sleeping Beauty" ("Dornröschen...

M.A.R.

Ahh

Mithrandir

M.A.R.

Double ahh

'tis weird though

@Mithrandir That's a bit messy

Arguably messier than mine

Downvoted idea of the day

-16

Q: Why is there only one vote button?

Why doesn't an answer have two vote buttons, one for the effort and one for the accuracy? You know some people spend some time to answer questions and probably they answer the wrong way. So, why give them only down votes?

feature-request voting user-interface

Ankit Sharma

10:07 AM

@M.A.R. -1, and and one DV button was enough for me

M.A.R.

-11

Q: Method to get answers accepted if OP is unregistered

On many of the Stack Exchange sites, a significant proportion of questions are asked by unregistered users who are then unable to accept an answer to their question as correct. This is a massive disincentive to answering questions from unregistered users, given that the probability of reputation ...

discussion feature-request reputation accepted-answer unregistered-users

Rand al'Thor

10:46 AM

Morning all.

M.A.R.

\o

A J

@Randal'Thor ~~Morning~~ evening.

Rand al'Thor

@Mick I think that's covered by this meta post (short answer: no, it would be too opinion-based).

@Mithrandir Wow, you certainly do!

Huh, that's odd. I earned the Citizen Patrol badge on meta, but I still have 0 helpful flags.

M.A.R.

@Randal'Thor And you didn't raise any flags?

Rand al'Thor

@M.A.R. I did, but they're still pending.

That seems ... silly.

Oh, wait, does Citizen Patrol really mean first flagged post and not first helpfully flagged post?

M.A.R.

10:56 AM

mhm

A J

@Randal'Thor I think it's first case.

I got this badge on many sites right after flagging the post.

Not when my flag was declared helpful.

Though my first flag was never declined.

Rand al'Thor

So anybody could earn it by just flagging a post and writing "bingle bongle dingle dangle yikkety-doo yikkety-dah ping pong lippy tuppy too tah" in the custom flag description box?

2 mins ago, by Rand al'Thor

That seems ... silly.

(bonus points for anyone who gets that reference)

A J

@Randal'Thor Doctor Who?

Rand al'Thor

@AJ +1

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