The Reading Room

Bookworm

00:09

1

Q: Was Paradise Lost the first major work of literature to give "sympathy for the devil"?

John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost was first published in England in 1667. While this is long after the Protestant Reformation where alternative ideas about Christianity became slightly more excepted (and perhaps a little less deadly), a story whose protagonist is Satan himself seems fairly re...

Rand al'Thor

@Librarian I'm not totally sure how much point there was in this ...

DVK-on-Ahch-To

00:22

@Randal'Thor SFF tag wars are way different. They exist on two levels: tactical (we don't like specific tags) and political (we don't like tags at all, so let's kill as many tags as we can / we love tags, you have a tag, and you have a tag, everybody gets a tag).

@Randal'Thor On this site, tag wars are strategic: do we tag by specialty, or by author/work, as a primary tagging mechanism.

As an anecdotal example, the same user (myself) can be personally in favor of work/author tagging on SFF and against it (as a main mode) on Literature.

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I'm not even going to comment on SFF tag wars. Too many conflicting views, and I have to try to please everyone.

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Why? What's different about the two sites that makes your tagging views differ?

DVK-on-Ahch-To

Because on SFF, aside from some really broad categories verging on Meta, there's no general well-accepted and professionally-termed areas of expertise. Whereas, in literary analysis, there are.

So, really, there's no useable "professional" system of tagging that's possible on SFF, so author/work is pretty much the best of the worst options.

muru

How many *-literature tags survive now? Hindi does, and it, fortunately, doesn't suffer from the ambiguity that, say, french-literature/russian-literature have

DVK-on-Ahch-To

It's not a good system by any means, unless you're specifically a fan of Star Wars or Harry Potter (which makes Slytherincess' life great, but for example mine, awful - I have to scan literally every non-story-ID question to see if i'm interested in it).

But on SFF, there's simply no better system to be had.

It's an emergent property of site scope.

Whereas, on Literature, we can have a far better system. But so far my impression is that only 2 people like it (Gilles and myself).

Rand al'Thor

@muru Russian, Greek, Hindi, American, French, German, Polish, and Classic.

Apparently.

My guess is that none of them are used consistently though.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

00:28

Just to be clear, I'm fine with Author/tag as 2 of the 5 tags. I just don't want taht to be the MAIN scheme.

muru

@Randal'Thor Hindi is, and I aim to keep it that way

(well, for two questions, that is)

DVK-on-Ahch-To

To be honest, I'm perfectly happy to either be fully CDO and have separate "XXX-literature" and "XXX-language-literature" tag, or simply merge the two and make life simpler for EVERYONE (and, maybe, have a tag for all questions that analyze broad-spectrum literature, e.g. questions about Russian literature as a whole get tagged russian-literature+cross-literature-analysis to distinguish from questions about specific russian books that get a simple russian-literature+AUTH/WORK

BESW

Yeah, one problem that folks generally don't want to talk about (not just here, but on literature as a field) is who gets to decide about those labels. National literature is a constructed concept, not a natural category.

muru

That Devdas question is a good example - Devdas itself is in Bengali (iirc), but the question is about Hindi lit

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To But there are many possible classification methods - country of origin, language, genre, length, to name but a few - and only 5 tags available.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

00:34

@BESW Why does it make any difference whether it's a constructed concept or a natural category? The goal here isn't to invent a 100% perfect tag. It's to make a tag that helps a subject area expert or enthusiast to be able to find 97% of relevant questions, without having to scan 100% of entire site or maintain a list of 100-1000 author tags.

BESW

That doesn't necessarily make it bad (though the idea of a national literary canon emerged as part of a jingoist colonial paradigm which is still making major problems today, and that's something else people don't like to talk about), but I think we need to recognise the difference.

Rand al'Thor

I've made this point somewhere on meta (can't find it now), but there isn't room for (random example) russian-literature AND fyodor-dostoevsky AND crime-and-punishment AND dead-souls AND nikolai-gogol AND comparison AND novel AND symbolism on a question about comparison between the uses of symbolism in Dead Souls and Crime and Punishment.

BESW

Because treating category tags as if they're natural or organic is going to seriously limit our ability to use them effectively.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

I want to hang out on this site and discuss Russian literature (mostly because, let's be frank, I'm rubbish at English one). I simply can't. literally. I don't have the capacity to sit and filter every question to see if it's Russian language work or not.

3

I basically stopped looking at questions lately 95% of the time, other than random peeks, and the above is one of the main reasons.

Rand al'Thor

There we go, first Popular Question badge for Robert on meta, as I predicted.

BESW

00:36

We've gotta be aware that if we label Czech literature "Russian" we're saying something very meaningful in a real-world kind of way.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor That seems like an outlier that's easy to handle (drop the work names and lose a minor bit of precision) and very rare; I don't see why its existence is a valid reason to discount the broader categories.

BESW

Again, bringing up these problems with tagging categories doesn't mean I think we should abandon them as a bad job. If we didn't do anything unless it was completely non-problematic we wouldn't do much of anything.

But we're more effective when we face problems.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@BESW There's an easy rule of thumb here. Again, think like an academic. Are there people who study Czech literature as specialty? Yes. Separate tag. Is there separate Chech language that has a meaningful # of works? Separate tag. Simple. Also... I have never heard of anyone - at least in Russia - referring to Chapec or any other Czech author as "russian". Ever.

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I hope that questions about comparisons between two specific works aren't going to be "very rare".

BESW

I find it a little distressing that every time I bring up how something's complicated, folks think I'm advocating for the most extreme burn-and-salt solution.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

00:39

@BESW You ARE facing a problem. You're seeing people who can meaninfully contribute to the site, abandon the site and any effort to find good questions to answer, for lack of a good filtering scheme.

So far, at least 2 came out publicly about it - and given that it's two people who rarely see eye to eye on Meta issues... that should tell you something :)

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To The deeper you get into a field of study, the more broad and multifaceted it seems to be. I wouldn't be surprised if actual specialists in Czech literature would laugh at the idea of being an "expert in Czech literature", saying no, they're an expert in this or that Czech author, not in the entirety of all literature in that language / from that country.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@BESW The problem is that people use your "it's complicated" as an excuse to reject "not worth doing". Even if you yourself may not intend that.

BESW

@DVK-on-Ahch-To And, well, I still think we're putting the cart before the horse on the whole issue: two weeks into the Stack and we've already gone on slash-and-burn for tags.

Would we have lost people if we'd just let the tagging emerge for a couple weeks before going in with a blowtorch?

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor Yes and no. If you get to postdoc/research level, yes. However, (1) we are not academic enough to THAT level of depth, and likely will never be as a site; (2) I'm going for a specialization/major level of granularity. You don't get a graduate degree in Chapec (sp?) studies; you get it in Czech literature, and then write a thesis on Chapec.

@BESW The problem is that a meaningful "academic" tagging scheme requires work from the get go. So it either gets a buy-in and people make an effort to keep things reasonably tagged, or it's useless. Imagine if you didn't have a C++/Java tags on SO from the day 1. Can you add them on day 300? Bloody hell that's impossible job.

2

That was a reason I suggested such tagging on Meta on early days of private Beta.

BESW

Since we've established that the current user base isn't very academic, I'm not sure how much that can accomplish.

muru

00:45

@DVK-on-Ahch-To but you could try on day 50

It's not either/or. Giving it a bit of time to see what happens would have been nice.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor Basicaly, you have to remember what your goal is. The goal (at least one I'm articulating) is: An grad school level expert in the field should be able to reasonably easily find questions that they are interested in without reading ENTIRE site. That means, having JUST author tags, is too narrow (his degree is in Hindu literature, and he's unlikely to be interested in only 1 or 2 authors);...

@Randal'Thor ... but if he's interested in just a couple of Hindu authors, having hindu-literature is 100x more useful to him than not having it - now he can search for his favorite authors, in 1/100th of site's questions, by searching/browsing within that tag.

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To What about people whose interests span more than one specific country/language's literature?

BESW

I see a lot of folks assuming that specific actions which worked or failed on another Stack will work or fail here, rather than drawing on Stack principles and broad experience-based learning--part of which says that we need to see how this site works and then look for similar examples in other sites that we can draw from.

2

muru

As an example, there's a time-command tag on Ask Ubuntu that was about to be removed (it was only on one post, from which it got removed). It's useful, because the time command is difficult to search for. I then trawled through hundreds of questions and came up with a handful that fit it. And that's on a site that's second on the traffic rankings. Retagging can be done, and done well if you have a team helping you

Rand al'Thor

Take me, for instance. I'm interested in British literature, American literature, Russian literature, Latin American literature, ...

DVK-on-Ahch-To

00:49

@Randal'Thor If it's a finite set of countries, the tags are still useful. If not... well, then they aren't helped by this scheme, but they aren't helped by any scheme in existence either so they aren't worse off.

muru

@Randal'Thor so you won't use those tags. Others still can

BESW

(I've also noticed that everybody's talking about these tags as if language and country are the same--or at least, that we all assume everyone else is talking about language or country the same as we are.)

muru

@BESW wasn't that one of the objections?

Is French Literature for literature from France, or in French?

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor You already basically need to scan entire site, so you're not good, but not worse off. AND, you can at least set finnish-literature on ignore because you hate snow (I made that example up)

BESW

@muru If so, I missed it.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

00:51

@muru See my comment above. We can do either one, or even BOTH on the same tag. Those are technical details that can be designed (or experimented) around.

BESW

But yes, that's an excellent example.

muru

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I did - I was just telling BESW about the example I remembered

Rand al'Thor

@BESW I haven't made a distinction there simply because it muddies an already complex issue. The arguments for/against country-based tags and language-based tags are likely to be more or less the same.

BESW

What it implies to me is that this sort of tagging is never going to happen naturally.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@BESW I am happily willing to admit they aren't the same. Again, I'm striving for let's say 90% precision here, not 100% precision. Because, the alternative is 0% precision.

BESW

00:53

We're taking on a Sisyphean task wherein experienced users have to re-tag every question by inexperienced users, forever and ever, amen.

Rand al'Thor

@BESW As long as we have some experienced users willing to do that job in real time, that's not necessarily a huge problem.

BESW

This throws out a major benefit of tagging: that every asker tags their own question sufficiently well that exception-handling is minimal.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@BESW THAT is actually a valid argument. I'm not sure how to counter it at the moment, other than "I suspect the benefits outweigh the costs"

Rand al'Thor

For instance, both SFF and M&TV regularly get ID questions posted by new users without the ID tag included.

muru

@BESW Gilles already does that pretty much single-handedly on U&L

Rand al'Thor

00:55

But we're pretty good at adding that tag on very quickly.

BESW

@DVK-on-Ahch-To And this is where the "who decides what's tagged how" issue rears its head: we get a cadre of high-activity users making decisions about the scope of a question that the querents should be making for themselves.

muru

Seeing his work made me realise how terrible people are at tagging, even tags having a sufficient number of questions to show usage clearly

BESW

I've seen that happen on RPG.SE and it's ugly.

Gilles

I can't sleep, so…

@DVK-on-Ahch-To and all the others who upvoted meta.literature.stackexchange.com/questions/291/…

@Randal'Thor mostly because they're being edited out / rejected in suggested edits

@muru but why do you actively prevent trying on day 5?

muru

@Gilles I don't, I support the *-lit tagging

Gilles

01:01

@Randal'Thor So? On Unix & Linux, I was the tag police for a long time. And yet at that time I read at least the title of almost every question.

Rand al'Thor

@Gilles I downvoted that answer, but I'm open to having my mind changed if someone comes up with an argument which addresses the cons (only 5 tags per question, how do we choose between language/country/genre/length/etc., how to distinguish between language and country anyway) as well as presenting the pros (easier to find questions for someone interested in French/Russian/etc. literature as a whole).

Gilles

@muru Literature in French is the most relevant one. If we find that we also want to distinguish from France, then we should discuss this on meta and come up with good naming.

Example: Travel did that to distinguish [country] (about visiting the country) and [country-citizens] (about visa issues and such faced by citizens of country visiting some other place)

There are ~400 questions on the site. If a handful of people had enforced basic tags during the private beta, they would be the norm and it would have required no more work than the average private beta. Instead, a handful of people enforced the absence of basic tags during the private beta and now adding those tags would be uphill work.

@Randal'Thor What cons?

BESW

Wake me when this is a thing on meta where the whole site can weigh in.

Gilles

literature.stackexchange.com/questions/1402/… → english-literature john-milton 17th-century religion

4 tags. I don't foresee a problem with too many tags.

@BESW Wake up, BESW!

BESW

@Gilles Excellent. Make a post there about these concerns you have.

Chat doesn't solve anything.

Gilles

01:08

5

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

As a counter to Robert's post, I am of the counter argument crowd. Many fans of literature (and dare I say "experts") will be interested in a particular language-of-origin. To me, a first-time or casual visitor will be interested in russian-literature and use that as a starting point for searc...

@BESW it's really tiresome to hear you say again and again “make a meta post” and pointedly ignore the existing meta posts

BESW

That doesn't address the problems you've discussed in chat.

For example, you've said that you personally are finding it difficult to locate questions you're interested in.

That data sample is valuable.

muru

@BESW does that need a separate answer? An upvote on the answer that already has that point would do, IMO

BESW

@muru Since I have no idea what's causing his trouble, I don't know.

I think describing the problem rather than assuming we already know the solution would be useful.

Gilles

@muru that's exactly what I did.

BESW

Get involved in elaborating and supporting the existing meta discussions if you feel they're insufficient.

If you feel they're sufficient, then I'm not sure what the chat's been about.

muru

01:12

@BESW convincing the opposition?

Gilles

@BESW just me wasting my time, I guess

BESW

@muru Shouldn't that be in meta?

There's no guarantee the "opposition" will even see it here.

muru

And then we'll have le mod come along and say extended discussions should be in chat. :D

Mithrandir

@Gilles my problem is that it's being used on all questions about poems. Like The Raven and Jabberwocky would, at the moment, get tagged poetry. This seems like tagging half of our questions novel.

BESW

@muru But it wouldn't be discussion. It'd be a clear presentation of problems, solutions, etc., either through editing existing As or providing new ones.

You know, meta.

Gilles

01:14

@Mithrandir at this point I really don't know what to say except to repeat myself: having a tag poetry for questions about poetry makes perfect sense.

Rand al'Thor

@Gilles The ones I listed in parentheses.

BESW

I'd like to assume good faith that Gilles wouldn't just be starting comment debates.

Rand al'Thor

@Gilles How about this one? literature.stackexchange.com/q/736/17 (genuine question - I'm curious how you'd like to see that tagged, given the 5-tag limit)

Gilles

@Randal'Thor c-s-lewis neil-gaiman english-literature fantasy

Rand al'Thor

@Gilles Ah, you're against individual-work tags?

Gilles

01:15

@Randal'Thor you mean, the non-problems that I replied to above?

@Randal'Thor welcome to the discussion, where I get told repeatedly to post on meta, and people keep ignoring what I post on meta.

BESW

@Gilles Nah. We're asking you to add these concerns from chat to your meta dialogue.

Because your meta presence doesn't seem to reflect your full concerns.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir As I commented on Helmar's answer, it seems redundant to put a poetry tag on questions already tagged the-raven or songs-of-innocence-and-experience.

Gilles

@Randal'Thor it would be if tags were hierarchical. But they aren't.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor which is exactly my point.

Gilles

@BESW It does. You can't see my votes directly, only in aggregate with other people's votes.

Mithrandir

01:17

But why do these discussions have to happen at 3am?

Gilles

@Mithrandir because I can't sleep

Rand al'Thor

@BESW To be fair, Gilles has posted two answers on meta saying we shouldn't use individual work titles as tags. (I'd forgotten that when asking him about the Gaiman/Lewis question just now.) They were heavily downvoted.

Gilles

I don't see tags for individual works as harmful most of the time, just useless, except that they're harmful in a few rare cases: when they're ambiguous, when they're spread out (multiple translations or other variant titles), and when they displace other, useful tags

muru

@Mithrandir because it's 10 am :P

Mithrandir

I am going to sleep.

I just came because my phone beeped to tell me that we went public.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

01:29

@Randal'Thor Could you clarify what's wrong with the argument for all those you pointed out that I presented in chat in the last 1/2 hour? :)

muru

@Randal'Thor still around? You could update some of the community ads you had posted with the shiny new ones

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I'll have to think about it some more, and maybe read through this whole conversation again tomorrow.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor I'm not sure if Gilles is against individual work tags, but they can and should be sacrificed as the least meaningful tags (unless it's for a popular work like Harry Potter), when there's too many tags because >1 author is the topic as in your example

@Gilles Be Nice. They are problems. They aren't unsolvable, but they are genuine concerns people have.

2

Rand al'Thor

@muru I'm working on a question for the main site now, but maybe I'll be able to do some more stuff with the community ads tonight too.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor I can get behind poetry being TOO meta to be useful. There'a re no "all poetry" experts who can meaningfully monitor just that tag. I don't mind it, but if a tag needs to be sacrificed due to 5 limit, that one is it :)

Benjamin

01:33

Just wanted to congratulate everyone!

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor I'd post a summary on Meta... but I don't feel like doing any extra legwork lately

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To That tag gives me the same sort of uneasy feeling as the media tags on SFF. As you say, nobody is an expert on all short-stories, or all poetry. There may be a few wide-scope questions about poetry as a whole which could use that tag (if they aren't all too broad), but I can't see any advantage in putting it on all questions about individual poems.

user61230

@Randal'Thor Have you ever seen Puzzling's analytics graph?

user61230

Check all the way back to the start of private beta.

Rand al'Thor

@Emrakul Yeah. I remember the huge spike in Nov 2014 during the spaghetti craze, and subsequent slump and then slow increase.

Looking at it now. There was also a slump around Aug-Oct 2015, for some reason.

OK, managed to pull it all the way back to May 2014. There was a spike right at the start of private beta, but that's miniscule compared to what started to happen a few months later.

user61230

01:49

Puzzling has a yearly cycle.

Rand al'Thor

It also lasted only a few days rather than the full 3 weeks.

user61230

What you're seeing in 2015 was repeated in 2016, and I expect will be repeated again in 2017.

user61230

That spike was an enormous problem for the site.

Rand al'Thor

I wonder what Lit's analytics for private beta look like. I've lost access to them now, but last time I checked, there was too little data for them to load at all.

user61230

You'll get access soon enough, I imagine ;)

user61230

01:52

Puzzling had our per week post count jump from 35 to 165, then 309, over the course of two weeks.

Rand al'Thor

Yeah, it was quite ridiculous.

user61230

We literally had a tenfold increase in fourteen days. And then it jumped threefold again in one week.

Rand al'Thor

Of course, I joined Puzzling during that November, so I had nothing else to compare it to back then.

I wonder if there are many other sites which had huge spikes of crap like that?

Bookworm

1

Q: Why did Harper Lee write To Kill a Mockingbird?

What was her motive behind writing it? Was it based or inspired off of her real experiences?

harper-lee to-kill-a-mockingbird

user61230

As far as I'm aware, it's at minimum uncommon.

Rand al'Thor

01:55

SFF had the Futurama event. I wasn't around back then, but I've seen some of the posts from that day. Bad, bad posts.

(Damn, if it had been just one day later we could have called it Futurama Fryday.)

user61230

At least they knew why it happened.

user61230

For Puzzling, my entire reaction was, "WHERE? WHY? HUH?"

Rand al'Thor

Do you have any idea even now of why that spike happened?

user61230

Not a damn clue, but if I did, I'd do my hardest to make sure something like it never happened again.

Rand al'Thor

I suppose it makes sense in a way. Solving puzzles is fun, solving easy puzzles is even more fun, and solving too-broad puzzles gets you to HNQs.

It's kind of like the HNQ effect that everyone complains about, but taking over an entire site.

user61230

01:59

It was probably something like that.

Rand al'Thor

That kind of thing is probably (touch wood) unlikely to happen here.

A good piece of literary analysis is much harder to write than a correct answer to a simple puzzle.

Though I may not be comparing like with like there.

Bookworm

-1

Q: Was CS Lewis referencing the uncanny valley?

I recently learned about the concept of the "uncanny valley", and it immediately reminded me of the following passage from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Chapter 8 (emphasis mine): "No, no, there isn't a drop of real human blood in the Witch." "That's why she's bad all through, Mr B...

c-s-lewis the-chronicles-of-narnia

Librarian

0

Q: Let''s get answering

As of today, we have 413 questions and 399 answers on our site. Coming off of such a strong and engaged private beta, it's disappointing to see that our answers/question ratio is less than 1. Ideally, we should have 2-3 answers per question, allowing for various points of view to be expressed. Wh...

discussion answers unanswered-questions

BESW

02:36

@Librarian @Randal'Thor I suggest adding this link to that meta.

Bookworm

06:30

0

Q: How to help a postgraduate student to write a book?

What is the best way to help a weak student who has already completed her post-graduation but has also secured a result much worse than her expected one during the completion of graduation, to write a good quality book which shall be recommended to higher secondary level students after its public...

childrens-book

user61230

07:21

@Bookworm The next time, I'm going to flag this as "rude or abusive." Abuse of the system is still abuse; that's what that flag is designed for.

Mithrandir

08:13

@Emrakul good idea. Then Charcoal can help with these :D

user61230

Honestly, if it's cross-network spam, it might be worth feeding into Smokey anyway, at least as a warning (though probably not good for autoflagging).

Mithrandir

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because you appear to be spamming this on several sites. I've seen this on Literature, Academia, and now here. What does this have to do with AI at all? — Mithrandir Jan 31 at 9:14

Yep. Cross-network.

Now, if JNat nukes it...

steelersquirrel

08:31

Wow! Congratulations on moving on to public beta! Great :)

Mithrandir

09:18

@steelersquirrel yep!

@Emrakul we're talking about it now

b_jonas

09:30

What happened? Did this move to a public beta?

But it isn't listed in stackexchange.com/sites#newest , even though that should list all public sites

Mithrandir

@b_jonas caching

b_jonas

area51.stackexchange.com/?tab=beta too says it's private beta

@Mithrandir Oh come on, if it's not on any of the master lists, then in what sense is it even public?

Surely they'd flush those caches when they want to make a site public.

I'll ask on Meta chat.

user61230

09:58

@b_jonas Caching! ;)

b_jonas

10:14

Oh look, we have an Asimov question now.

Broklynite

Okay serious question- am I the only one unable to interact because it says it's a closed beta still?

Neeeeevermind

I'm seeing the chat a few lines up. Please ignore me.

Bookworm

10:27

0

Q: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch - Why only one xxxxx ? [*Spoilers*]

In the book 'Dark Matter' by Blake Crouch the central plot theme is a 'box' that creates quantum superposition (see Schródinger's cat) which postulates that every time you make a descision an alternative universe branches off from the one you are in. As we constantly make decisions then the alter...

plot sci-fi

Bookworm

10:39

0

Q: Why are "last choices" necessary in David Mitchell's Slade House?

In Slade House, by David Mitchell, the twins work complex illusions to tempt their prey into the attic of their house before consuming their souls. The intended victims, however, are always given opportunities to back out and escape and are given a "last choice" just before the soul sucking comme...

david-mitchell slade-house

Rand al'Thor

12:04

@b_jonas I see it on that list.

Mithrandir

Like I said. Caching :P

Huh. It doesn't show the text if it was redflag deleted?

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir You never saw that before?

Ah, I guess you've never had 10k powers before.

Mithrandir

Right.

Unfortunately :P

Rand al'Thor

10k powers are OVER 9000.

Mithrandir

They are even over 9999 :P

-8

Q: How to help a postgraduate student to write a book?

What is the best way to help a weak student who has already completed her post-graduation but has also secured a result much worse than her expected one during the completion of graduation, to write … a good quality book which shall be recommended to higher secondary level students after its publ...

research cognitive-science

I think we decided to abusive flag it?

We had our first Tumbleweed awarded...

Rand al'Thor

12:19

@Mithrandir I was trying to work out why I couldn't flag or VTD this, then realised it's on AI.

@Mithrandir Awww.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor heh. Well, if you create an account...

Rand al'Thor

in Charcoal HQ, yesterday, by Rand al'Thor

Nah, I like to keep my accounts list tidy.

b_jonas

12:36

@Randal'Thor Yes, most people see it on that list. See discussion in Meta chat starting at chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/5749608#5749608

b_jonas

12:46

@Mithrandir aww, now he's cross-site spamming

@Mithrandir he posted on Writer too I believe

(but I can't prove that, you'd have to ask high rep users there if you wanted to be sure)

Benjamin

12:58

@Randal'Thor Well, I am happy I got it.

@Mithrandir I did just to flag that.

Standback

13:52

@b_jonas : He definitely did, and one of our regulars said he'd been on a whole bunch of sites.

Honestly, WTF. "I have an unsuccessful grad student. I want him to write a successful book. YOU HAVE SEVEN DAYS."

Rand al'Thor

> I want specific answers to this question within 7 days from today – user409 7 hours ago

Standback

It's like Mission Impossible! :P

Rand al'Thor

> There is no need of closing this question as this website (Literature StackExchange) is exactly the right StackExchange for this question – user211 Jan 19 at 12:18

> Ok my friend,you may delete that question permanently if you wish,but you must either keep this question in this site forever or else migrate this question to Writers or Academia. – user238 Jan 24 at 3:49

Standback

::bug-eyed::

Rand al'Thor

^^^ comments from three of that question's incarnations on Literature

Standback

13:56

@Randal'Thor Incredible. Like it's not even spam - just someone who really is that bull-headed.

DForck42

mornin

Rand al'Thor

@DForck42 Afternoon :-)

Standback

Good timezone :)

Bookworm

0

Q: Use of 'Genuis' in Nicholas Nickleby?

In Nicholas Nickleby people use the word genuis to describe people they don't even know and in such a way that I do not beleive it has the same meaning as we now use it with. For instance Mr Crowl says the following in Chapter 15 "and I'll tell you what's more-I think these two genuises, who...

charles-dickens nicholas-nickleby

DForck42

@Randal'Thor how goes it?

Rand al'Thor

14:05

@Bookworm Genuis or genius?

@DForck42 Not bad. Busy on various metas. You?

DForck42

@Randal'Thor trying to remember how spoiler markup works

Rand al'Thor

>!

Double space at the end of each line if you want a multi-paragraph spoilerblock.

DForck42

thank you

Mithrandir

I'm half expecting that to get downvoted...

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Which?

Mithrandir

14:15

0

A: Use of 'Genius' in Nicholas Nickleby?

He appears to be using it in a sarcastic manner. He is saying that they are so stupid, that he'll call them geniuses. It's like when someone says: "Washington DC is the capital of the United States?" "Yes, you genius!" You don't mean that they are actually super smart. Disclaimer: I haven't re...

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Danger of answering in-universe questions about a book you haven't read: it's very easy to put your foot in your mouth and make yourself look like a fool if you aren't very sure of your answer.

(Not that I'm saying you've done that here; just a general thing to remember.)

Mithrandir

I know. Just this appears to be obvious to me, so...

@Randal'Thor did you do that with Star Wars? :P

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir I don't remember having done it, but it's possible I did at some point.

I do remember ~~Richard~~ Valorum doing it with Mistborn.

Mithrandir

Also, I had a test case here.

It could be that he's using it ironically or sarcastically? — Mithrandir 23 mins ago

It got some upvotes.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Flagged as obsolete, since it's now an answer.

Mithrandir

14:22

I'm waiting for a response to my custom flag about serial voting...

Although it didn't happen today, it happened like all last week.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir I still have pending 10-day-old flags on comments. A custom flag on a potentially tricky issue will probably take even longer to be dealt with.

Mithrandir

I had a tag renamed via flag recently...

Rand al'Thor

So did I ... on Puzzling.

Mithrandir

The [ee-cummings] to [e-e-cummings]

I had just gotten used to freely editing tag wikis, and now...: /

Loong

@Mithrandir How long have you been waiting? If it takes too long, you could write to "contact us" instead.

Mithrandir

14:28

Not too long. I was angling for a PMYP.

:P

Mithrandir

14:40

@Randal'Thor Nu? Where is my PMYP?

:P

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Am I seriously going to have to give you a PMYP on getting a PMYP?

2

DForck42

@Randal'Thor pmyp?

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor yes.

@DForck42 Patience, my young Padawan.

Rand al'Thor

@DForck42 Mithrandir is so overeager about everything (rep, badges, responses, and so on) that my telling him "Patience, my young padawan" has apparently become A Thing.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor I just hate waiting for things...

Rand al'Thor

14:47

@Mithrandir You should get used to it. It's something you need to do a lot in life.

3

DForck42

@Mithrandir ahh

@Randal'Thor yup

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Do you really have a bronze discussion badge on meta already? Wow.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor with technology developing the way it is...

Waiting is obsolete.

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 Yup. I've been eligible for it for several days - just needed to wait for the discussion tag to get the required 100 questions.

DForck42

what do you need, 100 rep?

Standback

14:50

100 score, IIRC.

Which, given the amount of disagreement on our Meta, is no small task :P

Rand al'Thor

At least 100 score in at least 20 answers.

DForck42

ahh

Rand al'Thor

Apparently I have ... 261 score in 26 answers.

DForck42

I'm 5 rep away, but also 5 answers away

Rand al'Thor

Ah, good, I'm no longer the only person to have the Curious badge on meta.

DForck42

15:01

I need to read more non-scifi/fantasy for this site...

Bookworm

2

Q: Was R.A. Salvatore's works inspired by real world D&D campaigns?

I have been reading the Legend of Drizzt series by R. A. Salvatore. I am currently half way through Stream of Silver, which is in book two of the collection. While reading this, I noticed that it almost reads like a novelization of a dungeons and dragons campaign. If we assume that the main pa...

legend-of-drizzt r-a-salvatore

b_jonas

15:45

@Randal'Thor hehe

Oh, at least the rep limits have increased to show the site isn't private beta anymore

I no longer get all sorts of free privileges for just being a user

Rand al'Thor

@b_jonas Yep!

I posted a reminder on meta for those of us who still can to continue using our close/reopen votes.

b_jonas

@Randal'Thor Yeah. There are now 30 people with the required 500 rep for that, plus presumably some SE overlords.

Even after this change, any user, even one with very little rep, can suggest edits to any question or answer (regardless of whether it's CW or whose question or answer it is), right? Who can suggest edits to tag wikis?

Though only the SE overlords can approve those suggestions yet.

So the suggested edit queues might be a bit big now.

@Rand, I think when you reach 1000, you'll be presented with a wall of suggested edits.

No wait, I'm stupid

There are already 10 users over 1000 rep.

Riker

16:01

lol

b_jonas

The users view just defaults to show only this week's reputation, which is confusing.

doppelgreener

@b_jonas Anyone registered can suggest tag wiki edits. (Or maybe it's a privilege gained in the 1-100 rep range.) People with the Edit privilege can review them.

Riker

including rand

@doppelgreener iirc it's a special edit priviledge

b_jonas

It's not the first time I've got tripped up on this.

Riker

doesn't come with normal edits

@b_jonas yeah that's annoying

doppelgreener

16:02

@Riker There is a privilege earned at 20k for editing them freely, but suggesting those edits comes much sooner (I can do it on full sites where I have only 101 rep) and reviewing them comes with the Edit privilege (2k on full sites).

Rand al'Thor

Even non-users can suggest tag wiki edits.

Riker

yeah

doppelgreener

@Randal'Thor I cannot suggest tag wiki edits for sites where I am not registered.

Rand al'Thor

Users with 5k rep can review them, and users with 20k rep can edit freely.

Riker

I don't think reviewing them comes with normal edit privs though

on private betas, 350 is edit/edit review and 750 is tag edit/review

> Privilege Type: Moderation Privilege
Awarded At: 1,500 Reputation

b_jonas

16:04

@doppelgreener Yes, I know it comes early, and on a beta site the privilege for reviewing is at 1000 rep and 1500 rep respectively, it's just that because of the assoc bonus, I don't know if there's some small rep limit for even suggesting edits.

Riker

> Privilege Type: Moderation Privilege
Awarded At: 1,000 Reputation

yeah, it doesn't according to the privs tab

Rand al'Thor

@doppelgreener No it doesn't.

doppelgreener

My mistake, I was basing that on a beta site that still had the compressed rep progression.

Rand al'Thor

@doppelgreener Oh. That must have been a fairly recent change.

b_jonas

And at 4000 rep you can edit tag wikis immediately.

Riker

16:05

on public betas

Rand al'Thor

Or am I just not finding the right link?

You definitely used to be able to suggest tag wiki edits even without having an account, and you still can suggest post edits without one.

doppelgreener

@Randal'Thor When I visit a site to which I am not registered, or visit a site in anonymous browsing, there is no "improve tag wiki" link. There is when I'm registered at 101 rep.

Rand al'Thor

@doppelgreener Yeah, I'm seeing the same as you now. But look at this, for instance.

It used to be possible to suggest edits to tag wikis without having an account.

doppelgreener

I can see why that would change tbh

Rand al'Thor

Maybe they removed that ability because the only people who ever tried to use it were spammers.

doppelgreener

16:09

What would an unregistered user know about how tag wikis should be used or what they should look like?

Rand al'Thor

True.

doppelgreener

@Randal'Thor yeah, probably a low benefit:garbage ratio

Rand al'Thor

It is still a bit odd that 6k users can review suggested edits by 19k users.

I think there's a highly-voted feature-request somewhere for setting the "review tag wiki edits" and "make unreviewed tag wiki edits" privileges to the same level.

b_jonas

@Randal'Thor For post edits a difference could make sense, because a suggested post limit has to be accepted by two different users. How do tag wiki edit reviews work? Is one reviewer accepting an edit by a low rep user enough to commit that edit?

For post edits there's no difference in the limit though.

Rand al'Thor

@b_jonas All suggested edits need at least two reviewers, whether they're to posts or tag wikis.

b_jonas

16:13

@Randal'Thor Even if the reviewer can edit tag wikis immediately?

So it's possible that you can edit a tag wiki on your own, but you need another reviewer to agree with you to approve someone else's tag wiki?

Rand al'Thor

@b_jonas Yes. Same as with post edits: a 2k user could edit the post immediately, but if a suggested edit is in the queue, they have to wait for someone else to approve it too before it goes through.

Of course with post edits there's always the "Improve Edit" button if you want to insta-approve and then make an edit of your own.

b_jonas

@Randal'Thor I see.

Rand al'Thor

That button is absent for tag wiki edits for anyone between 5k and 20k.

b_jonas

Oh, so you can insta-approve, you just have to know to press the right button.

Rand al'Thor

(Or whatever the corresponding rep limits are on beta sites.)

HDE 226868

16:17

@Randal'Thor I still need . . . . 8 more answers.

Mithrandir

16:46

Wooo. 2222 rep.

Bookworm

17:07

0

Q: Is religion still an important factor in the world of Fahrenheit 451?

There are several cases in Fahrenheit 451 where it is clear that Christianity, while evidently extremely rare, is still heard of. For instance, Faber notes that Jesus is still known, though in a much different form than before: "It's as good as I remember. Lord, how they've changed it - in ou...

fahrenheit-451 ray-bradbury

HDE 226868

in The Factory Floor, Dec 23 '16 at 13:54, by HDE 226868

I spend hours on a blog post
I write just one answer more
And it’s quiet in chat
I never liked the quiet before
I skim the featured tab each morning
A sign of the rep that's in store
And I smile
That never used to happen before

Still hoping for things to perk up after lunch.

doppelgreener

@Randal'Thor @Mithrandir What's a PMYP?

Rand al'Thor

3 hours ago, by Rand al'Thor

@DForck42 Mithrandir is so overeager about everything (rep, badges, responses, and so on) that my telling him "Patience, my young padawan" has apparently become A Thing.

doppelgreener

oh. :D

Riker

lol

Gallifreyan

17:20

@Randal'Thor you meant "Patience, my sock", didn't you? :P

Bookworm

0

Q: Why is there so much technical detail of whaling included in Moby-Dick

One of the peculiarities of Moby-Dick is that it includes large quantities of information about the science of whales and the practice of whaling. Whole chapters are dedicated to describing the technicalities of life aboard a whaling vessel in the most minute detail. These make the novel read od...

moby-dick herman-melville

Rand al'Thor

18:31

@Mithrandir Wow, that "postgraduate student" question has been getting posted around the network since 2015:

-13

Q: How to find an appropriate StackExchange site for my question

I have a question that I have asked in many Stack Exchange sites and it got deleted there, its format is the one that I am providing here: Title: How to help a postgraduate student to write a book? Body: What is the best way to help a weak student who has already completed her post...

support site-recommendation

HDE 226868

We have our first HNQ question.

2

Riker

cool!

Rand al'Thor

Whoa, whoa, really?

HDE 226868

44 views in a bit over an hour.

Rand al'Thor

HOW EXCITING!!! </steelersquirrel>

Standback

19:19

@Randal'Thor : Whoa. That's just weird.

...I wonder if originally he would comment "I want specific answers to this question within 370 days"

BESW

20:27

I'm having trouble finding a comprehensive rundown of the technical best practices for a Stack community ad. Can anybody help?

Benjamin

Would a question like "Is Walden a novel?" fine?

@BESW I would if I could, but I don't know enough.

Loong

@BESW like this? meta.chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/3546/7951

BESW

That's a start, thanks.

b_jonas

If a question asks whether some plot element in a fiction novel is real, is that on topic on Literature SE? Eg. if someone were to ask whether the yellow spotted lizards with venomous bite from Louis Sachar's Holes are real animals? I won't ask that particular question, because it's a FAQ (no, they're entirely fictional).

Benjamin

@b_jonas Yes, those are on-topic.

IIRC

Bookworm

20:39

-1

Q: Were all of Shakespeare's plays fully in iambic pentameter?

Were the plays within The Complete Works of Shakespeare entirely in iambic pentameter? I seem to recall singing bits (when there were lyrics) from Twelfth Night and definitely from Much Ado About Nothing, which were not in that metric form. However, it could be the way that I had strung the lyr...

william-shakespeare

b_jonas

@Benjamin This is a trick question, because we often consider these trick questions on Sci Fi. Most such questions at least.

Benjamin

@b_jonas Oh, so you were testing me?

b_jonas

There's a good reason for that: most such questions are bad, because they ask how realistic some sci fi elements are, eg. whether we could build warp drives matching the description in some book.

@Benjamin No, not you in particular.

Benjamin

@b_jonas Yes, I agree we need to be careful, but I don't think they should be inherently off-topic.

Hey @mick !

Mick

Hiya! Just dropping in the catch the craic. ;-)

BESW

20:56

0

A: Let's design an ad for our site

Based on my thoughts shared last week, here's a potential ad (I'm not super happy with the quote font yet, and if community members want to volunteer handwritten versions of the quote I'd love to use one of them instead). And a blank version for folks to customise with their own tagline:

Transcript for