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1:02 PM
I asked a question about "Burning the Old Year", but I am not sure whether anyone can get a good answer for it. Is it still worth asking?
 
She's an ex-KBG agent
She should be used to plain
Also, she is an experienced Clue hunter, which means that she would have been in the hospital several times
@Benjamin probably
 
@Mithrandir I like it how people think of KGB as some sort of super-people, used being dropped naked in a forest, skinnig living bears with bare hands, and making their pelts to clothes, their claws to weapons, their fat to fuel, and their meat to food.
 
... You're welcome?
 
That's a real thing I've been told in a conversation with a non-Russian friend
 
when i hear kgb i just think of russian assasin
what youve just described is bear grylls
 
1:10 PM
Seriously, somebody is serial upvoting me.
@doppelgreener why are you looking through my posts anyway? O_o
 
Anybody interested in the KGB --or Soviet Russian ideology, or Cold War spycraft-- would probably find Victor Sheymov's Tower of Secrets a fascinating read.
It's his autobiographical account of why and how he deserted the KGB to America.
(It was recommended to me by my Czechoslovakian ENT.)
 
Waiting for @Randal'Thor to tell me what he thinks of my updated answer
 
You'll have to wait a bit longer. I've got loads to catch up on.
(Also, what answer?)
 
1:28 PM
The Narnia one
It had a bit of a growth spurt
 
Growth spurts are good.
No offence, but you sometimes have too much of an aversion to writing long answers.
 
@Randal'Thor I know. It's a problem of mine that I'm trying to work on.
@Randal'Thor except for this:
7
A: In what order should Rick Riordan's mythological series be read to make the most sense, and what is the chronological order?

MithrandirWarning: This is long. A reminder: Percy Jackson and the Olympians deals with the Greek gods. The Heroes of Olympus deals with the Greek and Roman gods. The Kane Chronicles deals with the Egyptian gods. Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard deals with the Norse gods. The Trials of Apollo has Gr...

:P
 
@Mithrandir I'm not. I was looking through the front page.
 
@doppelgreener oh right, that was one I &*did* edit. Sorry, was a bit mixed up
 
@Mithrandir Wasn't that the one that made you complain about your sore fingers?
Also, that answer could benefit from a bit more formatting (bullets, lists, etc.) to make it easier to read.
 
1:44 PM
@Randal'Thor yes :D
@Randal'Thor true. I'll edit some in soon
 
@Mithrandir I might have a stab at editing it at some point too.
@Mithrandir Nice ID question, btw. Loads of detail. Even better than mine.
 
@Randal'Thor thanks!
 
in Mos Eisley, 7 hours ago, by ibid
@Randal'Thor - Pretty sure I had a "The films are nonsense" type comment on the recent CC question that got deleted. (Unless I didn't end up posting it.) Was there something specific that happened here, or is this popular meme no longer appreciated on SFF?
 
@Randal'Thor there have been a few, I flag them when I see them
 
2:03 PM
On this site I think sticking to the basic principles of commenting -- using them for their express purpose, which is suggesting improvement and requesting clarification -- will help us avoid a lot of unhelpful or outright unfriendly dialog over "X work of media is bad" or other small ideology wars which are a distraction away from our point.
 
@doppelgreener Yes, we've already had a meta about that.
 
@doppelgreener yup, flag em if you see em
 
@Randal'Thor Oh, hooray!
 
I was feeling enlightened, but then I realized that I'm one short...
 
Oh goody, Sean Duggan is here with an ID question!
He has an extremely strong track record in ID questions on SFF. I should have thought of pinging him when we were talking about making a really exemplary one.
 
2:10 PM
But I succeeded? :P
 
Yes, I already said that.
 
@Randal'Thor it's a good one
 
Yes, I was kidding.
... People always think I'm being serious.
And I am kidding like 80% of the time.
 
this is the internet. everything is serious.... and factual. no time for fun and games here.
 
sigh
@Rand <serious> Did you read my updated dwarf answer? </serious>
 
2:17 PM
your sarcasim was lost on the masses
 
@Mithrandir Not yet, sorry. Will do.
 
@Himarm psh. if people knew what sarcasm was, we would lose half our memes
2
 
2:34 PM
@Randal'Thor On the whole, I think the longer answers here are much better than the shorter ones. Sometimes they really don't get enough votes.
 
@HDE226868 Definitely agreed.
 
9
Q: Why is our best content being ignored?

HamletWe're three days into the private beta, and people have been asking some interesting and sophisticated questions about literature. People have been asking wonderful questions about the meaning behind certain elements of Mexican literature, questions about how to interpret specific lines of poetry...

 
@HDE226868 yes, but people are lazy and don't read...
 
I personally enjoyed writing my longer answers much more than my shorter ones.
 
Unfortunately, this is a problem with SE voting as a whole: people on the internet tend to have short attention spans, so they'll read a short Q&A and upvote it, but if they see a long one, they'll just say "TL;DR" and ignore it.
 
2:36 PM
That's why people try to include a tldr :P
 
@Mithrandir I argue that's a different issue. That's more an obscurity issue; I'm saying that even answers to the simplest questions might be ignored if they're overly long.
 
I was proud of this answer and this one, for instance, but I wonder how many people have actually bothered to read through all of that?
 
Oh, right:
> Those questions also require a lot of effort to answer them.
@Mithrandir Right. I should do that on some of mine.
 
@Randal'Thor actually I read the hunger games one bit was or if votes
So there you go
Gtg now
 
@Mithrandir Yes, a summary or some headers can help a lot. When I write long answers, I've learned to use bold text judiciously so that people can get the important bits at a glance and then read in more detail if they want to understand the surrounding information and support for those bold parts.
"bit was or if votes" = "but was out of votes"?
Lists and bullet points also help to break up a long answer into manageable parts.
Woh, why am I suddenly getting upvotes on the Milverton answer?
 
2:42 PM
@Randal'Thor I got one on the question. Perhaps someone linked to it.
 
@Randal'Thor reading the HG one now
 
Trolls are breaking records on SFF
-6
Q: Did Bellatrix rape Hermione

SaraIn the movie Bellatrix is on top of Hermione kissing her it looks like she's raping her did she? But then carved mud-blood in her arm. 0_0 This took place at Malfoy manner.

Just one in a recent streak of "Did X rape Y?" questions
 
@Gallifreyan watching the downvotes pile on, lol
 
At first I thought "My memory must be fuzzy, I read the book a long time ago", and then I remembered other questions
 
2:58 PM
@Randal'Thor yes o_O
 
0
Q: What are the themes in I, Robot?

DForck42Isaac Asimov's I, Robot book, a collection of short stories, is an amazing piece of work that explores some of the possibilities of technology. It is a great, complicated piece of work. Since it has several short stories, it's hard to nail down exactly what themes the book talks about. One maj...

y'all want literary analysis? there ya go
 
@DForck42 Isn't it a bit broad?
 
@DForck42 Sure that's not too broad?
> There are either too many possible answers, or good answers would be too long for this format. Please add details to narrow the answer set or to isolate an issue that can be answered in a few paragraphs.
 
Ninja'd
 
@HDE This might be one for you? meta.literature.stackexchange.com/q/282/17
 
3:00 PM
@Randal'Thor ok, how can I tighten it up then?
 
@Riker welcome!
 
Welcome aboard, Commander Riker!
 
@DForck42 I'm not sure. Narrowing it down to ask about specific themes would clear up that issue, but that might go too far from what you really want to ask.
 
@Randal'Thor ehh, if it gets closed i'll start a meta discussion
that's what private beta's for, right?
 
@Randal'Thor Well, the problems with memes is that they require knowledge of the meme's existence to be understood, especially when the alternative interpretation is that it's just denigrating a work without any constructive contribution.
Coincidentally I just answered a meta question resulting from such kinds of comments getting out of hand, leading to confused users and a strange atmosphere.
 
3:12 PM
@NapoleonWilson Sure. And perpetrating these memes too much can create an "in crowd" atmosphere unless (maybe even if) it's very clear that they're memes.
 
@NapoleonWilson lol
 
@NapoleonWilson You can always edit it out ...
 
@Randal'Thor I don't feel confident enough to do so.
(Neither am I sure I even can.)
 
Well, you can suggest an edit at least.
I don't remember how much rep you have here.
 
3:27 PM
I was just throwing it into the room to see if anyone besides me even thinks it's a problem at all.
@Randal'Thor Not much.
 
Someone should probably make a broader meta post about the whole business of using broad tags such as or on questions about specific works.
 
At the end of the day, maybe general topic tags are perfectly okay here, didn't we even have already?
 
I saw a couple of comments between (?) DVK and Robert about it on meta, but only comments. Plus the question about specifically, of course.
 
@Randal'Thor Isn't there already one? I remember you even answered it (with pretty much the argumentation you eschew for author tags).
 
@NapoleonWilson I answered one about specifically, but not about such broad tags in general (at least not that I remember).
 
3:30 PM
@Randal'Thor Yeah, it seems that was what I was remembering.
 
I also made a similar point here:
Not sure if I agree on your tagging suggestion. I'm generally rather against using general tags on questions about specific works, especially since there's a maximum of 5 tags per question. If you have a literary analysis question about comparisons between War and Peace and The Idiot, you can't tag it with leo-tolstoy AND fyodor-dostoevsky AND war-and-peace AND the-idiot AND comparison AND classics AND russian-literature AND literary-analysis. — Rand al'Thor 57 mins ago
 
Aaand we have a winner for off-topic of the year
0
Q: What does it mean when a cat licks you?

SaraWhen a cat licks you does it mean they like you?

 
is mexico tag for mexican literature or just for a story that is set in mexico
k its trolling now
ban hammer
 
@Himarm now it got deleted
 
slaughter them
ip ban
 
3:37 PM
I had one guy who argued with me about ellipsis, but that's a whole new level of douchery
 
Oh cool, someone removed the wrong fable example from the fairy tale question.
 
3:57 PM
@NapoleonWilson that was the author
 
@Randal'Thor so is my dwarf answer better now?
 
@Gallifreyan That depends, did the cat walk through walls to do that?
 
@doppelgreener Ah, even better.
 
0
Q: What's the defining difference between a fairy tail and a fable?

doppelgreenerIn Is a moral lesson a requirement for fairy tales?, the commenting crowd has pressed for clear discernment between whether fables or fairy tails are being discussed. How do fables and fairy tails differ? What are their distinguishing features, and how will I know whether the story I am reading ...

 
@Gallifreyan Not Nice
 
4:00 PM
@DVK-in-Florida nope. Neither was it talking.
 
I've asked this; it may be helpful to bring back to that question to clarify what's going on.
 
@doppelgreener I love fairy tails
 
@DVK-in-Florida hey, you were going to answer my skeleton question!
 
They taste like frog legs
 
@TrojanByAccident Don't post that as an answer though, hahaha
 
4:01 PM
@Mithrandir OK, reading through it ...
Doesn't the Jewish faith teach that Jesus was a heretic and false Messiah who's now boiling in hell?
 
@Randal'Thor well then.
 
> You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.
 
@Randal'Thor whoa, brutal
 
So I'm not sure if I agree with this:
> As this is almost exactly what Judaism believes, that he was deified by his followers, he seems pretty critical of them.
 
@Randal'Thor That's what I was taught
 
4:03 PM
@Randal'Thor That struck me as an intensely polarizing statement. What about learning from Buddha, or Mohammed, or Baha'u'llah..? I can call those impressive teachers without calling them madmen or incarnations of God or the Devil.
 
@Randal'Thor no
 
0
Q: Do we need such broad tags on questions about specific works?

GallifreyanIt has come up in chat that the usage and existence of such broad tags as russian-literature or short-stories on questions asking about specific works are debatable. On one hand, they help categorize a question, for the purpose of finding it - and we have agreed that we want to use author tags ...

 
@TrojanByAccident Haha, thanks for that correction. I made the fairy tail/tale mixup several times earlier too. The "ai" in the first word must be mesisng my brain up.
 
0
Q: Are questions about the themes of a work Too Broad?

DForck42I asked the following question on the main site: What are the themes in I, Robot?, and as such it has been closed as Too Broad. I have conflicted feelings on this, because on the one head yes, there are a lot of possible answers to this question. However, on the other hand, if we want to be a s...

 
@doppelgreener No problem at all :P
 
4:04 PM
@doppelgreener I agree. (With you, that is, not Lewis.)
 
please post your opinions, I'd like to see what everyone has to say
 
@DForck42 I think pistachio is an underrated ice cream flavour.
2
 
@doppelgreener eww ;-)
 
@doppelgreener I agree
 
I like chocolate with chocolate covered in chocolate
 
4:05 PM
@doppelgreener I think it's repulsive.
 
@DForck42 how many themes could one work possibly have? If we are allowing , I think that would fall under the same scope?
 
@doppelgreener It's decent. I prefer pistachio muffins, though
As for ice cream, mint chocolate chip is the way to go
 
@DForck42 Well formulated question. I don't have a serious response to provide to it yet though, and would be very interested to see others'.
 
@Skooba that's basically my argument
 
@DForck42 I'm working on an answer.
 
4:08 PM
@doppelgreener :-D
 
@TrojanByAccident Yum.
 
@DForck42 well then i agree. I have VTRO the question on hold.
 
@Skooba :-D
 
2
Q: Difference between [united-states] and [american-literature]?

CHEESEWe have several different [nation x-literature] tags such as russian-literature, greek-literature, and american-literature. However, we also have country tags like united-states and japan. How should these be used differently, assuming they are not synonyms?

I think we should have both
 
4:11 PM
@Mithrandir unless the question is specifically about a country's influence on a work?
 
[nation-literature] for works written by an author of particular nationality, and [nation] for questions ala "Why was it censored there?"
 
That's an interesting discussion
 
@doppelgreener And I wholeheartedly agree with that.
 
@Mithrandir I agrre with the rejections
 
4:18 PM
@Gallifreyan what?
@Mithrandir >_>
 
@Riker ?
 
@Riker as in, "Welcome to the chat dear friend, we've missed you!"
 
ah okay
i was asleep at that time sooo
 
@Riker Riker is suspicious of all friendliness. he only speaks in threats
 
that is correct
I was actually just confused bc I just woke up so I wasn't in chat at that time
 
4:21 PM
@Riker But your account dropped in...
 
o_O
1 hour ago, by Gallifreyan
@Riker welcome!
yeah I can assure you I wasn't in chat at 7:20 am PST
I woke at 6:03, went back to bed, just woke up again
@Mithrandir if somebody opened my laptop and the page reloaded, taht might have been it
 
@Randal'Thor so you don't agree with what I say that the Jews believe about Jesus?
 
I accidentally left chat open all night
 
So when do the delete votes become available after it's been closed?
Was going to VTD this.
 
@Mithrandir Well, you would probably know better than me ...
 
4:23 PM
@Mithrandir ‮Didn't know we had access to delete votes
 
4
Q: Difference between nation and nation-literature tags?

CHEESEWe have several different [nation x-literature] tags such as russian-literature, greek-literature, and american-literature. However, we also have country tags like united-states and japan. How should these be used differently, assuming they are not synonyms?

1
Q: Do we need such broad tags on questions about specific works?

GallifreyanIt has come up in chat that the usage and existence of such broad tags as russian-literature or short-stories (or mexico) on questions asking about specific works are debatable. On one hand, they help categorize a question, for the purpose of finding it - and we have agreed that we want to use ...

 
whoopsy
 
@TrojanByAccident Really? You didn't?
 
@TrojanByAccident at 1000 rep you do
 
@Mithrandir Two days, until you become a Trusted User.
 
4:24 PM
@Mithrandir This is the only site where I have power to do any votes(not including up/down) at all
 
@Randal'Thor thanks
@TrojanByAccident ...You can upvote/downvote on Puzzling...
 
I think he meant close/ro type of votes
 
@TrojanByAccident that was way more effort than I wanted to spend to read that :P
 
@Randal'Thor excently worded response to my meta
 
4:26 PM
@DForck42 Did I convince you of the broadness of your own question? :-)
 
@Skooba Yeah, I accidentally pasted my unicode ‮right-to-left
 
@TrojanByAccident Fine, I often read right to left as that's how Hebrew goes
 
@Randal'Thor we'll see if anyone else comes up with a compelling counter argument ;-)
 
בסדר
 
@Mithrandir Nice. I tend to read in all directions, just because. Helps to know other languages, though :P
 
4:27 PM
@Mithrandir so you speak/read both hebrew and english fluently?
are there any other common languages where you are?
 
@Riker English yes, Hebrew is okay.
 
ah okay
 
@Riker Arabic, but I don't speak that.
 
ah
 
had a coworker once that could speak English, farci, and russian
 
4:28 PM
@Gallifreyan I'll try. But that won't be quick.
 
*farsi
 
5
Q: Literature Stack is now open!

Lauren IpsumOkay, not precisely a question, but important to many here, I think. http://literature.stackexchange.com is now in beta and already churning up questions. Given that we get quite a few "discussion of literary works" questions here — it's even one of the close reasons — I thought our community wo...

I wonder if we should have one of these on SFF ... and brave the gauntlet of close votes and "should these questions be allowed?!?!" meta posts ...
 
You know what's rather annoying to me? The interpreter I use for js doesn't correctly the right-to-left character
 
@Randal'Thor Sure :P
And use the link area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/93238/literature/visit to link people to the site
Since that actually works.
 
whereas in chrome, a='‮';(function(){console.log(a);})();
works just fine
 
4:33 PM
@Mithrandir Urgh, the Writers meta post doesn't include that link.
 
@Randal'Thor I noticed, I just commented there.
@Standback not exactly - anyone who goes through this link can visit the site now. — Mithrandir 1 min ago
 
Oh, I was about to ping Standback.
 
@Randal'Thor ...That's exactly what I did o_o
 
@Mithrandir I meant in here.
 
Ah
And Monica tells people how to get to that link, but doesn't give the link
There's a back door into private betas: find the Area 51 page, use the "visit the site" link, and create an account from there. — Monica Cellio ♦ Jan 19 at 16:06
yawn I should stop procrastinating...
 
4:38 PM
@Mithrandir same
 
@Randal'Thor Technically speaking, there's no hell to boil in. There's pretty much a dearth of that kind of thing in the main religious texts - some mention but no detail.
 
:34983527 why was that removed?
 
Huh. That Wiki inner anchor link definitely didn't onebox right. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell#Judaism
@DForck42 ^^^^
 
@DVK-in-Florida k
 
Oneboxing is a dark art.
 
4:42 PM
@DVK-in-Florida No mention of people being punished in the afterlife?
@DVK-in-Florida But the Defence Against the Oneboxing position is jinxed.
 
Related:
23
Q: Why don't Jews think Jesus is the messiah?

android.nickChristians say that Jesus is the Messiah spoken of in the Old Testament; Jews disagree. Why couldn't Jesus be the Messiah spoken of? Or could he possibly have been?

11
Q: Do Jews believe in Heaven and Hell?

TzviIn yeshiva I was always told about gan eden and gehinnom, and how the good go to the former place while the bad go to the latter. However, in popular culture, Jews are always said to not believe in Hell (and many times Heaven). Why the discrepancy?

@Randal'Thor ^that was supposed to be a reply
 
@Mithrandir you can do a one-box reply
 
I know
I just forgot to click reply
 
@Mithrandir so why not edit and click reply?
nvm
too late
 
Exactly
 
4:47 PM
Anyway, issues of hell aside, would it be correct to say the Jewish religion teaches that Jesus was a heretic, rather than just a good man who wasn't the son of God?
 
No...
 
it depends
some view him positively others view him negatively depending on their sect afaik
 
@Himarm kind of like George Lucas or Steven Moffat?
 
lol
and it can get messy too, he could be a good man who wasnt the son of god and was a heretic at the same time
 
So how's the 6th book of the Young Wizards series? Worth reading?
 
5:11 PM
Wow, everyone left...
 
@Mithrandir I'm here, I just don't know anything about Young Wizards
 
kinda here, trying to work
 
If anyone has anything to ask about TombQuest, the author reads my tweets...
 
@Mithrandir what's TombQuest?
 
Also I helped beta-test the game, but that doesn't count
Was one of the first 50 users to ever play
 
5:17 PM
@Mithrandir neat
 
@Mithrandir yeah, but what's it about?
 
@Gallifreyan Egyptian magic
Mummies
I actually only read the first book, so... :P
But I keep the TombQuest Wikia clean from harm, as an admin there.
And ran their twitter, back when we posted anything...
@tombquestwiki
The official #TombQuest wiki twitter!
21 tweets, 13 followers, following 14 users
Michael Northrop is following me, and has replied.
I also emailed him with a question and he replied.
So I set up basically the whole site, the design, everything
 
I hate wikia, so much ads
 
Nothing I can do about that, sorry.
 
@Mithrandir I know. Website looks nice though.
 
5:25 PM
@Gallifreyan Thanks!
 
Is it supposed to do that?
 
What, delete?
 
@Gallifreyan ad blocker?
 
Yes
 
I mean cropped letters
 
5:26 PM
Oh
Ummm
Don't know.
 
Shoulda added red circles
@DForck42 yeah, but some wikia sites ban adblock
 
Yes, that's how Wikia does things like that, unfortunately.
 
What's that movie La La Land everyone's talking about?
Apparently, it got a bunch of Oscar nominations
 
@Gallifreyan meh, I'd rather fewer viruses over reading a wikia, so...
@Gallifreyan emma stone and ryan gosling
dunno the premise
 
So @Randal'Thor I still can't figure out what you think of my answer, good or bad...
 
5:31 PM
@Mithrandir god it's ugly...
 
@Mithrandir ?
 
@DForck42 Exactly
@Randal'Thor They're planning a new topbar, that's an example
 
@Mithrandir what REALLY has my jimmies in a twist, is that it was posted on meta.SO, not meta.SE, and we don't see that s*** on the smaller sites
 
even though it affects us as well
 
5:32 PM
@Mithrandir OK, I've finally finished reading it.
 
@DForck42 It's only for SO for now
 
@Gallifreyan which episode is that?
 
@DForck42 errr...
 
@DForck42 The second Craig episode.
 
@Randal'Thor Good. So...? How is it?
 
5:32 PM
The Caretaker?
 
With the Cybermen.
I forget the name.
It was a rubbish episode, IMO.
 
@Randal'Thor is it the one with the baby?
 
@DForck42 yeah
 
Stormageddon, yeah.
 
5:34 PM
I don't know a thing about DW.
 
@Mithrandir Well, first off (and I think doppelgreener said this last night too): many of the things you've highlighted don't specifically point to Jews more than Muslims or atheists. Yes, the dwarfs are sceptical about Aslan - that just makes them "not Christians", not specifically Jews.
 
@Randal'Thor you might prefer this one then
 
@Gallifreyan lol
 
@Gallifreyan Much better.
Have you seen the room description of Time and Relative Dimension in Spoilers, btw?
 
ddem sideburns do
 
5:36 PM
@Randal'Thor I call that episode "The Eyebrows"
 
@Randal'Thor ...continue.
 
@Mithrandir Another point: you say "the Dwarfs were originally faithful, but then lost faith", which isn't a good piece of evidence since the Jews existed before Christianity ... however, is there something about the dwarfs being 'Old Narnians' despite being sceptical of Aslan which you could work into your answer?
 
@Randal'Thor possibly, after the site goes back up
 
Even though they didn't exist before Aslan, they were still around before the Calormenes (I think?) and the Telmarines.
 
@Mithrandir you broke it!
 
5:39 PM
 
nope, that was Jeff
 
My heart sank
@Randal'Thor now I have - cool one :)
I like how people call Makoto Shinkai "the young Miyazaki"
 
5:52 PM
Yay, I can post!
 
6:03 PM
@Randal'Thor I think @Gallifreyan's example is good enough as it stands.
 
6:27 PM
@Randal'Thor better now?
 
@Mithrandir I think I agree with @Randal'Thor that the quotes don't necessarily describe Jews, just non-Christians. It somewhat fits the style of my beliefs, as an atheist.
I'd also want to be convinced that those beliefs were shared just by the dwarves, and not other groups of Narnians.
 
@Randal'Thor if the meta gets another vote, i'll accept and move on (and post all of the specific theme questions) ;-)
 
6:55 PM
there's a reddit book gift exchange happening: redditgifts.com/exchanges/manage/#/exchange/books-2017
 

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