The Reading Room

Benjamin

12:11 AM

Would a question about the effects of if Dickinson's publications had been accepted on-topic?

BESW

What effects?

And which publications?

Napoleon Wilson

@Benjamin Emily or Bruce? ;-)

BESW

Because it's not like she was unpublished during her life.

Benjamin

@NapoleonWilson Emily

BESW

Most common knowledge about Dickinson is warped, if not outright wrong.

She was reasonably well-published during her lifetime, and nobody was surprised to find a lot of poems in her room when she passed away.

Benjamin

12:13 AM

@BESW Actually for the most part, she was, with most published editions being significantly edited.

@BESW Are we talking about the same Emily Dickinson?

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Huh, I was thinking Peter.

BESW

She had almost a dozen poems published during her lifetime, and although they were heavily edited it wasn't any more or less than was being done to other poets.

And she shared her poems freely with her friends, frequently breaking into verse in the middle of a letter.

Dickinson's character has been altered post-mortem almost as much as Poe's.

Napoleon Wilson

> You'd call Emily Dickinson a freak?

Shog9

Just think, @Benjamin... If you'd asked that question, BESW could've answered by now

BESW

No, BESW would've closed it as unclear what's being asked.

The effects on poetry? On Dickinson herself? On Higginson?

"Accepted" how? More widely published? Better reviews? More imitators?

Or is the question really "Was Emily Dickinson the sad unpublished shut-in protogoth that high school English teachers are told she was?"

Rand al'Thor

12:22 AM

I wonder why george-orwell has been so popular here?

BESW

Rand al'Thor

Also, does anyone have a subscription to Time magazine? I've found an article which might help to supplement one of my answers, but most of it is hidden behind a paywall :-/

BESW

@Randal'Thor Time, what is Time?

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Edit on the way. Although those are . . . disturbing stories, even for Poe.

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 Eh. The comedy and over-the-top satire deadened the disturbingness, IMO.

Hamlet

12:30 AM

Out of curiosity, is there a reason why my the-waste-land questions haven't been getting a lot of attention? Should I be writing these questions differently?

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Maybe it's a work which not many people are familiar with?

HDE 226868

@Hamlet I think you're doing fine. I'm not familiar with The Waste Land, and so I've abstained from voting on those, but they don't seem to have any issues - other than perhaps obscurity, which is not your fault.

Napoleon Wilson

@Hamlet Well, my question hasn't either. Some things people just haven't read, or it went through the cracks of continous new questions.

(But part of the reason might also be that we all hate you!) ;-)

Hamlet

Guess I'll have to ask some questions about Tolkien.

Napoleon Wilson

Anyway, nice questions indeed.

w...word-coinage?

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

12:46 AM

?

HDE 226868

@Hamlet Or anything about Doyle. I'd like to see some good Sherlock Holmes stuff; I'm not too impressed by what I've seen so far.

Napoleon Wilson

I liked the gay thing.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

you're napoleon ;)

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 I have a Sherlock Holmes question brewing.

HDE 226868

@NapoleonWilson That was good, especially given all the fan talk regarding the TV series.

Napoleon Wilson

12:47 AM

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ ...of crime?

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Ooh, nice.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson I'm currently in the process of massively improving my answer to that one, with actual canonical quotes.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@NapoleonWilson yes totally

DJMcMayhem

@HDE226868 I'm curious. Why did you remove the song-lyrics tag from your question? I was about to add it before I saw it in the revision history

Napoleon Wilson

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ cue shameless advertizements of other sites

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

12:48 AM

ah, nice

I upvoted the answer since it's very helpful

;P

user61230

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ I'm gonna post my Area 51 questions

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

cool, have fun!

user61230

You can, too, though, no worries!

Napoleon Wilson

I still haven't found a proper username, I simply don't read enough stuff. <shamefully groveling emoticon>

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

oh, I didn't realize that was yours

sorry about that

HDE 226868

12:50 AM

@DJMcMayhem Feel free to add it, if you think it should be there. I wasn't sure yet whether such a tag would be useful. We can see in the future.

user61230

It's fine! It's just a good idea to ask people first to see if they're going to post their questions.

Bookworm

0

Q: When will Literature get its own badges?

This is my first time to participate in an SE beta. I've gotten a badge or two already, but I noticed that they show up in my notifications as the same shape as whatever other SE sites use (i.e., a film reel from Movies & TV). When will Literature get its own badge shapes?

0

Q: Unable to review close votes

I'm not quite sure why this is, but when I try to review close votes, the only option I have is 'Skip.' A screenshot: Is this because of my low rep?

support vote-to-close

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Your SFF username is a guy from a book, right?

Benjamin

@Randal'Thor Because he is one of the best of satirists.

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Yeah, but I'm not sure i should just port that over. Something unique would be cooler.

Rand al'Thor

12:52 AM

@NapoleonWilson Maybe something from the Silmarillion? ;-)

Napoleon Wilson

Or I might just go back to TARS for SciFi and use the Witcher character here.

@Randal'Thor Hmm, nice idea.

@Randal'Thor But again, that's also more SF&Fy. Maybe something from a gothic novel.

Catija

... yes, because what I really need is to have to add another username to the mental list of "this is Napoleon"....

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson I forget - are you into Poe too, or is that just Ms Nevermore?

Napoleon Wilson

I thougnt about Melmoth the Wanderer, since I really enjoyed it, but then again, I don't want to look like these guys named after their single question. ;-)

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Picking "Morgoth" would not be a good idea, I imagine.

Napoleon Wilson

12:54 AM

@Randal'Thor Well, I don't dislike him, but I wouldn't call myself a fan for the simple reason that I haven't read enough.

Catija

You should name yourself "Christian" after the guy from Cyrano de Bergerac

Napoleon Wilson

In fact probably only The Raven and The Tell-tale Heart.

@Catija Yeah, no. ;-)

@HDE226868 I also don't want to pick a name that every guy and their grandma already use.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson But then again, I hope you'll have more than a single question here!

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Me too, but I don't know.

DJMcMayhem

@HDE226868 OK. I think I will, it seems to me like it would be useful.

HDE 226868

12:56 AM

@NapoleonWilson "Mim" is probably open. (I'm kidding; I would not advise picking it)

Napoleon Wilson

Macbeth is sucked too dry already, too.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson If you want a more obscure LotR bad guy, the Lieutenant of Barad-dur would be a good one.

(Though I'm not sure what HDE is implying by suggesting you should name yourself after a bad guy ;-) )

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Meh. There's enough cool people in The Silmarillion indeed.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@doppelgreener forgot about it and ate some food, but finally answered!

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor I was making a humorous observation about Morgoth, and I don't think too terribly about Mim. Have some sympathy for the guy; he was the last of his kind (with his sons).

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

12:58 AM

also the related Q

Rand al'Thor

Ooh, I've just come up with another Holmes question to ask, @HDE.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Consider me interested.

DJMcMayhem

I wonder, would questions about the bible be on-topic here?

(Of course, questions about the bible in a literary sense, not a theological sense)

Napoleon Wilson

@DJMcMayhem That...could get interesting...

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

yeah, I'd say leave that to the biblical hermeutnicsahuhdas site

probably they would be, but we might want to explicitly disallow them just for the sake of no arguments

Rand al'Thor

1:07 AM

@DJMcMayhem You might be interested to read SFF's meta on religious works. Not all of those arguments apply here, but some of them do.

Darn, Lauren Ipsum isn't pingable in here.

Napoleon Wilson

Yeah, the Scifi guys have significant experience with that stuff. I also don't know how Mythology goes about it.

Rand al'Thor

HDE is a mod there, right?

HDE 226868

@NapoleonWilson @DJMcMayhem On Mythology, we treat the Bible and other religious works just like any other mythology.

We don't care about whether or not it actually happened. That's the only way to avoid offending people. We treat it like a collection of stories, not as religious material, per se.

Rand al'Thor

Makes sense.

DJMcMayhem

@Randal'Thor Sure. The most notable difference here is that SFF is specifically dedicated to fiction, and saying "<fill in the blank religious text> is fictional" is offensive because a lot of people believe it

HDE 226868

1:11 AM

I think the same thing could work here on Literature. Treat it as a story.

Now, we're likely going to have a lot of fiction.

DJMcMayhem

But I don't know if all questions on this site necessarily should be about fiction

Rand al'Thor

@DJMcMayhem Just what I was typing before you pinged me :-)

HDE 226868

But non-fiction may also have a place.

DJMcMayhem

@Randal'Thor You know what they say about great minds. XD

Rand al'Thor

8

Q: Is literary non-fiction on-topic?

Literary non-fiction is a form of non-fiction, in which the author uses the techniques of literature to describe a factually accurate account of a true occurrence. Is this on topic?

discussion scope

Napoleon Wilson

1:11 AM

@HDE226868 Well, that's good. And it's good to hear that actually works so far (which I guess it does).

HDE 226868

@NapoleonWilson I think it works very well indeed.

No complaints yet.

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 You're lucky.

Napoleon Wilson

Yeah, I guess it comes across differently when you call the bible "literature" in contrast to "fantasy".

Rand al'Thor

On SFF we've had people quit because of the policy on religious works.

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor But...you tend to exclude them (to put it simple)...so those guys were actually non-religious, right?

HDE 226868

1:14 AM

Yes, the situation is a lot different on Literature or SFF than on Mythology. Everyone respects the stories; all are considered equal. Fictional mythologies are on-topic - I think; we haven't really had any - but everything else was created to be real. Elsewhere, a lot of works are just made up.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Yes.

@HDE226868 I'd think Literature might be closer to Mythology than SFF in this regard actually.

Anyway, all of this sounds like a good discussion for meta.

DJMcMayhem

I'll write up the question

Rand al'Thor

testing link Literature Meta

Ooh, that works.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Maybe. I think it's a more academic setting - if I can say that without offending anyone.

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Why shouldn't it? I've used the magic links a million times already.

Rand al'Thor

1:15 AM

Any ideas for improving this answer? It just got a downvote.

@NapoleonWilson I haven't used [meta] in chat before.

BESW

@Randal'Thor [meta.se] = Meta Stack Exchange

And [meta.literature.se] = Literature Meta

Rand al'Thor

I'm waiting for all the comments on this answer to be deleted so that I can post an actually constructive one.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Maybe add something to directly relate to Dostoevsky's prince? I don't know; I think it's okay as is.

Rand al'Thor

@BESW Yep, I know all the [site.se] ones.

BESW

And in comments, [help], [about], [edit], [chat].

Rand al'Thor

1:18 AM

[chat] is quite useless IMO.

It links to a list of all chatrooms.

I always link manually to the main site chatroom instead.

@BESW And [tour].

I use [tour] and [edit] a lot.

Shog9

Chat used to check the referer to determine which list of rooms to show, and the chat links were useful then. Unfortunately, that doesn't work if the browser doesn't send a referrer - which is common enough to make abandoning that strategy worthwhile.

BESW

Ah, right, I forget that tour is the new about.

Rand al'Thor

@Shog9 Since you're here, mind doing a quick comment purge here?

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Oh, well I admittedly didn't know [meta] actually works, I'd just use [meta.literature.se] and thought you did so, too. Heh!

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Let's see what [main] gives: Literature

Nice!

BESW

1:24 AM

Cute.

Napoleon Wilson

Wow, that's cool indeed.

user61230

I'm about to post a test video game question & answer.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

cool

Rand al'Thor

How do video games count as literature?

HDE 226868

Would a comparative or comparison tag of sorts be useful for comparing various works?

Napoleon Wilson

1:28 AM

@Randal'Thor Not, that's how.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@Emrakul IMO they aren't lit tho

BESW

If you can ask a good literary question about a work, does the nature of the work make it somehow not literature anyway?

We seem to be labouring under the illusion that literature can be firmly defined. Didn't we already try and fail to do this kind of hardline scope work in scifi.se, rpg.se, etc?

Academically, literature is whatever is taught in academia. That's circular and useless.

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 Sounds good. I'd lean towards comparison or maybe something like works-comparison (?)

BESW

Let's just see what questions get asked and determine them on their own merits, please.

Napoleon Wilson

in The Screening Room, 2 hours ago, by Napoleon Wilson

When you start including stuff just for inclusion's sake and because you'd like to pick yourself the great literary analysis questions about songs and films, then I'm not gonna be on board.

user61230

1:30 AM

I'm asking a moderately complicated literary question, and I'm giving what I believe is a very, very thorough answer to it, concerning a video game. We can decide from there.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Maybe. I'm considering asking on meta - rather than retagging a bunch of questions without asking anyone.

BESW

@NapoleonWilson And yet, this isn't about artificial inclusion. It's about artificial exclusion.

DJMcMayhem

@Emrakul Which video game?

BESW

Specifically, pre-deciding that something's not in before we have any experience with it.

Napoleon Wilson

@BESW That's where we disagree, I guess.

user61230

1:32 AM

0

Q: What elements of Oxenfree contribute to the horror it tries to establish?

Oxenfree is a horror video game about a teenager named Alex who... takes a trip to an island, and discovers some elements. It's definitively a horror game: the elements it introduces and the gameplay feel and look as though they're designed to bring about a deep sense of disquiet. What element...

oxenfree horror

BESW

It's basic learning from Stack experience: don't make policies before you've got a problem the policy is fixing.

DJMcMayhem

Oh that's funny, I'm actually just going through that game right now. :)

BESW

Topicality is no different from anything else in this regard.

Rand al'Thor

Funny how @Ash drops in just when the conversation turns to video games :-)

user15026

I think Literary Analysis is a different thing than Literature as a discipline, but it's looking like I might be in the minority here.

user15026

1:33 AM

@Randal'Thor my video game spider sense was tingling

BESW

I think the whole thing suffers from a few hundred years of elitist baggage that we're now mucking through.

user61230

@DJMcMayhem It's quite a good game, one of my favorites. Just be aware, if you finish the game, you're not really done playing ;)

DJMcMayhem

Ooooooh

user15026

Hm. I disagree, but I really don't have enough skin in the game to really want to push a response.

user61230

That's all I'll say about that, because... well, yeah.

Napoleon Wilson

1:35 AM

But I won't deny that I have entirely personal reservations

in The Screening Room, 2 hours ago, by Napoleon Wilson

The reason I supported Literature was that it's no competition to the sites I love. But when it turns into "literature and the good questions about movies" then I might be pissed. But as said, that's highly hypothetical and I doubt it will actually happen.

user15026

It feels like you are just taking questions that are analysis of any media, and that reels really weird and also really unbounded.

2

Rand al'Thor

@HDE literature.stackexchange.com/q/340/17

Benjamin

@Ash I think it is slightly better than that.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Awwww. . . That's complicated.

user61230

@Ash The conventional definition of "literature," though, is one that's been cultivated and grown throughout history. What didn't count as literature very recently in our history now counts as literature.

BESW

1:37 AM

Sure, but if we want to limit it, how are we going to do that? Are we really going to say that audiobooks don't count? Or that entire cultures without written traditions have nothing to say about storytelling we want to talk about?

user15026

How do you decide topicality? This feels like it can easily devolve into anything goes if you ask for critical analysis.

user61230

And that even excludes other cultures' expressions of their internal literature.

Benjamin

I am glad I got a vote back just in time.

BESW

The conventional definition of literature is cultivated by and for those invested in higher education as a sign of social worth in a particular set of connected societies.

user15026

As I see it, literature is written works. Not music, not film, etc.

BESW

1:38 AM

I find that unsatisfactory as a foundation on which to establish a Stack.

user15026

I'm not talking lit like a uni degree talks lit.

BESW

@Ash Audiobooks?

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 And a chance for somebody else to demonstrate what a really good reading-order answer should look like. (I like to think I've already made one.)

user61230

@Ash Video game dialog? Songs?

Napoleon Wilson

@BESW And that...sounds a little tin-foil-hatted.

Benjamin

1:38 AM

@BESW This is unfortunately why 'literary fiction' is a thing.

user15026

@BESW they have a written analogue

user15026

@Emrakul not literature. Video games are video games. Songs are songs.

BESW

@Ash Then what about radio dramas, which are effective audiobooks you don't get to see the written bits of?

Benjamin

@NapoleonWilson Even if you do not oppose the status quo, you must see it for what it is.

user15026

Not saying there isn't room for analysis of them, I just don't think here is the place.

user61230

1:39 AM

@Ash What about oral traditions? The Odyssey started out as an oral tradition, and was transcribed by Homer.

user15026

@BESW it's obvious nothing I say will be heard or considered.

Benjamin

@Emrakul Or Homers.

BESW

@Ash I'm honestly curious where the line gets drawn.

user15026

So that's chill, I'm cool with not agreeing with the definition

Napoleon Wilson

in The Screening Room, 3 hours ago, by Napoleon Wilson

But yeah, if someone is going to ask for the cultural impact of Airplane!, Imma be "dude, you could have asked that for 5 years already."

Benjamin

1:40 AM

@NapoleonWilson I am sure that nobody will.

user15026

It doesn't seem like anyone wants to draw a line.

BESW

If we're going to draw a line as "printed media," then admit exceptions like audiobooks, what other exceptions does that in turn admit?

Rand al'Thor

@Ash :-( That doesn't seem to be a good way of having a debate. Nobody here is being rude to you, AFAICT.

user15026

@BESW none, as far as I see it because audiobooks have printed versions

BESW

@NapoleonWilson These concepts are pretty firmly established in cultural studies.

user61230

1:41 AM

It's possible to ask literary questions about non-printed works.

Benjamin

@BESW Oral traditions, interactive fiction, etc.

user61230

But even that isn't doing the breadth of "literature" justice.

BESW

@Ash But... doesn't that mean we can't ask questions specific to the audiobook versions?

user15026

@Randal'Thor I never said they were. :) I just feel like I am fighting a battle that really, I don't feel like fighting because i honestly don't have enough of a passion to invest it.

user15026

@BESW I am really struggling to see how you would, but honestly, I regret even getting into this, because I don't want to be this invested.

BESW

1:42 AM

Again, I'm really just saying "Don't kick it out until we have an example to kick around."

user15026

Yea but the site also needs to be bounded in some way and I don't see how you are making any bounds

BESW

I see no purpose in pre-banning stuff that hasn't even happened yet.

I'm not making bounds, no. Not yet.

user15026

....why The heck did I get a star for saying I don't want to fight this battle?

Rand al'Thor

@BESW Well, @Emrakul has kindly given us an example to kick around.

user15026

@BESW trust me, if there are 0 bounds, the site will not survive.

BESW

1:44 AM

@Ash I agree. Thus, bounds get laid as needed.

Rand al'Thor

@Ash Stars are weird ;-)

user61230

The baseline problem is that "literature" is much more of a broad concept than people like to admit it is. If I can ask an interesting literary question about a piece of media, then it holds literary value, and doesn't that make it literature?

user61230

Whether it's oral tradition, movies, video games, or books, we can subject all these things to the lens of literary scrutiny.

Napoleon Wilson

@Emrakul Not as in this was intended. ;-)

BESW

Literature is a word that's been used for so many purposes it's roughly as defined as "young adult fiction" or "steampunk."

Let the user base feel for the edges of the site through questions and answers, and then stamp down on the bits that are deemed to far.

user61230

1:46 AM

@NapoleonWilson But if we're going to have a site about literature, and only allow certain kinds of literature, we're precluding the way most of the world communicates, and sticking only with the types of literature European/Anglo-Saxon communities developed.

user15026

So okay, are we doing literary analysis as a site scope/goal then? Because then I think calling it "Literature" is gonna confuse people.

BESW

@Emrakul And even then, only the kinds that the wealthy and educated deemed fitting.

@Ash It's something I've suggested, though I'm not in love with literary analysis as a discipline.

Napoleon Wilson

@BESW Y...eah.

BESW

Look at the history of what was accepted as "literature" against who was reading it when it was unaccepted vs accepted. Brontë's a good example.

So's Dickens.

"Literature" describes who approves of the thing, more than any quality of the thing itself.

By creating a site called literature.stackexchange.com, we've brought that history and onus on ourselves. If we ignore it, the site will not be taken seriously by the experts we desperately need.

user15026

Okay, stepping aside from what literature is or isnt - what do you want to see with the site? What goal is there? What niche are you trying to fill?

Napoleon Wilson

1:52 AM

Anyway, if that Area51 proposal started out as "Analysis of all kind of things" I'd have known to seriously work against it.

BESW

Me? I'd love to see this as a site where people can offer sourced, supported solutions to questions about the complexity of pre-recorded narrative communication.

user61230

@Ash I'd want it to be a site about understanding narrative.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Do we have to talk in terms of "working against" a site or proposal? Seems very negative.

Rivalry from other sites on day 3 of private beta isn't what I was hoping for :-(

Shog9

This is all very... abstract

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

yes

Shog9

1:54 AM

got folks getting territorial about mythical lands

user61230

@Shog9 The concrete question is whether the scope of literature includes a multitide of narrative forms, or just print writing.

Rand al'Thor

On a less abstract level, @Emrakul's video game question currently has 3 VTCs.

Shog9

@Emrakul sure. Earlier it was whether it includes song lyrics or not. Then someone thought up a concrete example and hey it was pretty good and the discussion died down.

BESW

As someone who, professionally, has worked to create spaces for Pasifika literature to be seen because it's rejected as not literature by both Eastern and Western publishers, it's not mythical to me.

user61230

@Randal'Thor I'm not really worried about that. Whether it's closed or not isn't super important to the discussion that occurs around it.

BESW

1:55 AM

So all I'm saying is, don't throw it out until we have something concrete to talk about.

Somehow that's getting a lot of pushback.

Rand al'Thor

@Emrakul Surely whether it's closed or not could set an important precedent?

BESW

Pre-emptively shutting out things as not literature is a horrible way to start this site.

user61230

@Randal'Thor I don't think it should. Close votes aren't a good way to decide scope in private beta and early public beta.

user61230

All it means is that five people didn't think it was on-topic, usually at first glance.

Rand al'Thor

OK!

You have more experience with private betas than I.

BESW

1:57 AM

Should I make a meta about not making metas about things we don't have a problem with yet?

Shog9

Back when Seasoned Advice was first getting off the ground, I thought it'd be really great if it had drink mixing questions and such. Some other folks thought it'd be nice to have questions on good techniques for making pot brownies. We spent a LOOOT of time talking about that stuff. Not a lot of questions ever showed up.

It was still, y'know, fun and everything

But... If it stops being fun, if folks are getting serious, maybe stop & think that you're anticipating a problem that'd be a really good problem to have since it means folks are just clamoring to ask stuff here.

Most of the time, that's not the problem that actually presents itself.

BESW

Yup, seen that a lot.

Devising solutions to as-yet-unseen problems just backs us into a corner when we actually do see the whites of a problem's eyes.

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Indeed, it is. I'm sorry. But well, it's very important to me, it's what I care most about. I won't deny it's a personal issue, but I won't give it up either.

fi12

I come back to this chatroom after a day, and what do I see? A mindful discussion on the works of Dostoevsky? No, I see memes. Memes. Come on guys, I appreciate memes as much as you all do but the purposeful overuse of memes for the sole purpose of annoying others is wrong. If you want to post a meme occasionally, that's fine. But if all you want to talk about is memes, find somewhere else to do it.

4

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Done.

Rand al'Thor

2:08 AM

@HDE226868 Oooooh, that looks really good. Give me a while to read through it.

HDE 226868

@Shog9 And more examples would be nice, given the voting on that question. I don't think it made a dent in that discussion.

@Randal'Thor It only took a half hour to write.

Napoleon Wilson

Of course people love it, it's a great question, duh!

Shog9

@HDE226868 sure. Bearing in mind that, a month, a year from now, there probably still won't be very many because - regardless of what a proper abstract definition for "literature" should be, regardless of what a good inclusive comprehensive Stack Exchange site about literature should have - literature just ain't gonna scream "song lyrics" to most passers-by

Lianne Caranthir

Hi, I was just wondering if there's any criteria as to what sources can be used

(I'm not very good with computers and can't find anything about that...)

BESW

That sounds like a good Literature Meta question!

HDE 226868

2:15 AM

@Shog9 See, that's a point I tried to bring up earlier.

Shog9

@LianneCaranthir there isn't, not yet

if you think there should be, then you could start a discussion on meta (as BESW suggests)

otherwise, use what you find useful

Lianne Caranthir

Okay, I'll ask just to see what the community thinks

Rand al'Thor

Welcome @LianneCaranthir! I liked your answer to the Byronic hero question: it uses a much better source than mine, albeit with a much shorter description.

Lianne Caranthir

Thanks a lot (aren't you that person from SFF)

Rand al'Thor

I'm a mod on SFF, yes.

> Holmes, feeling extreme pressure by fans, brought Holmes back from the dead after killing him off

@HDE ^ little slip there? :-)

HDE 226868

2:21 AM

@Randal'Thor . . . Indeed.

It took me three times to figure out what was wrong with that sentence, though.

DJMcMayhem

@HDE226868 100% agree with your meta answer.

HDE 226868

@LianneCaranthir In your specific case, I think your sources are excellent.

DJMcMayhem

Now I'm gonna have to and post a sample bible question to test the waters. "Why did the author decide to kill off the main character?" :P

HDE 226868

@DJMcMayhem It kind of hearkens back to what @BESW was saying about literary analysis.

Shog9

@DJMcMayhem yeah... that was the sort of thing that really put the nail in the coffin on SFF way back when.

DJMcMayhem

2:31 AM

On a more serious note, I'd love to post a serious question like that, if I could think of a good one

BESW

You might ask something about criterion for the apocrypha?

Bookworm

5

Q: Should we allow questions about religious texts?

Science-Fiction & Fantasy has a policy of excluding all religious texts. This makes sense because SFF is about fiction, and stating that a particular religious text is fictional is pretty offensive to those who believe it. However, I feel like we are in a slightly different situation because our ...

discussion scope

-1

Q: Are operas considered literature on this site?

I am asking specifically about the plots or stories of the works (rather than the music).

discussion

0

Q: What sources are considered good or acceptable and which aren't?

In some places, Wikipedia might be considered okay, in others it is adamantly denied. The same can be said of .com or .net websites, which I've found to be perfectly useful in my own experience. What guidelines should we have for deciding whether a source is suitable or not?

discussion

TrojanByAccident

ooh, a bot

@Bookworm hello, there :)

Rand al'Thor

Shouldn't Bookworm be the main site feed?

The meta feed could be the Librarian or something instead.

DJMcMayhem

I was literally just about to recommend that, haha

Rand al'Thor

2:44 AM

Hmm. There's a lot of talk about "just ask a question and see what happens" (e.g. @HDE's comment just now on the opera meta question, or some of what BESW and Shog have been saying), but @Emrakul also said that a question being closed during private beta doesn't really set a useful precedent for site scope. So when you just ask a question and see what happens, what does "what happens" actually tell you, if not resolving the on-topicness issue?

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Well, once there is one, you can just recall this one Meta Bookworm.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Ideally, you get Question -> Discussion about questions like it.

user61230

@Randal'Thor What I look for are the types of answers that a question is going to get. The two core issues are: a) can a question about the topic be sufficiently literary in nature? and b) do the answers about the topic reflect the sort of literary discussion I'd want the site to support?

BESW

Yeah, "what happens" should encompass much more than close voting.

user61230

Close votes are a good tool for quality control, but are a very bad tool for measuring consensus.

user61230

2:47 AM

Or any sort of complex or nuanced thought on an issue.

TrojanByAccident

@Emrakul Yeah, considering only 5 are needed

Rand al'Thor

I see. So posting an actual question about [operas|video games|musical scores|etc.] is more about giving us a concrete example to discuss on meta than about trying to set a precedent on main?

2

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor That's what I think a lot of people were trying to say today.

user61230

@Randal'Thor EXACTLY.

Shog9

@Randal'Thor yes

user61230

2:48 AM

Until we have not just one, but a few examples of each of those kinds of questionable questions, we have no idea if they're really suitable or not.

TrojanByAccident

Can someone put a link to the site in the room description? I know it's not that hard to type in, but most site rooms have a link to their site in the desc, and it's honestly easier

Napoleon Wilson

36 mins ago, by Napoleon Wilson

Of course people love it, it's a great question, duh!

Rand al'Thor

Well, that was a very clear response :-)

HDE 226868

@Emrakul This.

Shog9

Robert Cartaino has suggested elsewhere that it might even be a good idea to limit discussions to those problems of which at least 5 concrete examples can be found

3

BESW

2:49 AM

That seems very reasonable.

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 Well, I missed a lot of discussion today. Came back to find five pages of transcript, and didn't have time to read it all properly.

user61230

room topic changed to Literature: Welcome to chat for literature.stackexchange.com ! -- Read any good books lately? (no tags)

BESW

...if we can hold to it, that'd abate the headlong rush into policy without rumination.

Rand al'Thor

@TrojanByAccident Don't forget there's a direct link in the bottom right of the screen too.

TrojanByAccident

@Randal'Thor Ah, yeah, I'm just used to going up to the top right :P

@Emrakul thanks :D

Rand al'Thor

2:51 AM

@BESW I still think it was a good idea to start discussing ID, reading order, and (especially) recommendation questions from the off.

Which is why I had all the arguments written up in advance ;-)

(Except for rushing the end of my ID answer because the site launched early, but, well.)

BESW

M'rr. I'm not convinced, since it eg means the discussion of recommendations was already considered over before I could contribute RPG.SE's experience on the topic.

Since I'd, you know, have wanted to compare RPG.SE's experience to lit.se's experience and draw conclusions from similarities or differences.

RPG.SE's experience is very different from scifi.se's.

Rand al'Thor

It's never too late to add a new answer!

BESW

In theory, no. And maybe I will.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Existing answers tend to dominate, though.

Rand al'Thor

@BESW My answer here was more based on the old Lit's experience than on SFF's.

Napoleon Wilson

2:56 AM

@BESW Blame that on the failure of the previous iteration of this site.

BESW

I probably won't be able to providing any useful insight until I have something lit.se-specific to compare my rpg experiences with.

(Thus, if your early question about allowing them had gone the other way, I wouldn't ever have an opportunity to rebut it with useful support.)

Shog9

To be perfectly honest, if we'd been watching more closely we probably would've shut down all of those discussions (and have in the past on other new sites); too much temptation to fight proxy battles, too little material to actually come to solid conclusions relevant to this site.

BESW

This is why I've been fighting tooth and nail against attempts to pre-emptively curtail the site's scope.

It's so tempting, but so not helpful.

Shog9

ID questions, rec questions, list questions... Do tend to cause serious problems on the sites where they're common. But they're not common on every site. The last iteration of this topic suffered mightily from them; who knows if this one will.

BESW

Heck, even if rec questions become a problem, we have a lot more collective experience as a Stack network to draw on in dealing with the problem.

user61230

3:00 AM

I'm voting to reopen my own question on principle, because I think closing it misses and/or closes down an opportunity to even discuss the topicality of narrative outside the scope of "traditional" literature.

BESW

@Emrakul I'd be more interested in more questions on the same lines.

Poking around at the possibilities so the discussion can have wider context.

user61230

@BESW I may ask them, but at a moderate pace :]

BESW

eg, I'm trying to come up with something about Never Alone.

Shog9

@BESW heh... No one listens to it though.

BESW

@Shog9 Heh. RPG.SE fought so hard for game-rec, and admitted defeat so reluctantly.

Shog9

3:02 AM

That's the other problem with these discussions: mostly, the folks asking the questions aren't reading meta.

BESW

We had a good sense of what the problems were and what would fix 'em, though. We just had more faith in our community to do it than perhaps was prudent.

@Emrakul ...or the relationship between Dear Esther and choose-your-own-adventure stories.

Shog9

@BESW same story on Arqade, on Stack Overflow, on Anime...

Rand al'Thor

@Shog9 Well, I was trying to protect this one from that suffering, by making those pre-emptive meta posts.

Shog9

...*almost* the same story on M&TV

Rand al'Thor

(But of course I have no prior experience of private betas.)

BESW

3:04 AM

@Shog9 It sometimes feels like betas hit a reset switch in everybody's understanding of Stack philosophies.

user61230

@BESW Hold up, Dear Esther is an incredible example.

BESW

@Emrakul And Firewatch.

user61230

That's basically just narration, while you walk through a scene. But the entire story is in the narration, just accentuated by the visuals.

Rand al'Thor

@Shog9 Easy to link them to the meta discussion in a comment though?

BESW

Folks argue about whether Dear Esther "counts" as a video game, the way they argue about whether Microscope "counts" as an RPG.

Shog9

3:05 AM

@Randal'Thor "please don't ask this question until you've done these 5 things... oh."

BESW

@Emrakul Also, Never Alone is not dissimilar, except for some platforming challenges during the walks.

But it's also intersemiotically tied to oral traditions.

DJMcMayhem

How about telltale games? Those are basically choose your own adventure comic books

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

3:56 AM

did we discuss the religious questions yet?

I just answered one, want to make sure it's on-topic

BESW

Just answer it, and if problems happen we'll have a meta to address them.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

already did

@Randal'Thor for the pedant in ya:

10

Q: Chat rate limit pluralization bug

Found this out when trying to recite the alphabet in messages. When you hit the rate limit in chat, and there is 1 seconds left, it says the incorrect form. It shouldn't be plural. Example: Can this be fixed please? Seriously, this is slightly irritating. I am not just posting this to poin...

bug chat plurals

just got a answer from an admin I think

Rand al'Thor

5

Q: Should we allow questions about religious texts?

Science-Fiction & Fantasy has a policy of excluding all religious texts. This makes sense because SFF is about fiction, and stating that a particular religious text is fictional is pretty offensive to those who believe it. However, I feel like we are in a slightly different situation because our ...

discussion scope

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

cool, thanks

I figured @DJM had posted that, he mentioned it in chat iirc

Rand al'Thor

I'm off to bed.

Night all!

user61230

3:58 AM

Goodnight!

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