The Reading Room

Gallifreyan

00:01

There may be some exceptions to this rule (as in, a work of literature written in English but having some language tag), but the [english-literature] and [american-literature] tags have been burninated long ago and I'd rather they don't come back ~~at all~~ without proper discussion on meta.

Bookworm

00:51

0

Q: Why is Christopher Marlowe considered an atheist?

My question is, that how could it be possible for Marlowe to deny the existence of God while at the same time, produce such a masterpiece like "Dr. Faustus" whose topics are God, Lucifer, angels, virtue and sin, Heaven and hell and most of all, the conclusion itself. If this is the work of Marlow...

religion

North Læraðr

@Gallifreyan ah, okay

heather

04:44

@Mithical well then it gets more confusing because quantum computing is sort of technically not really a beta site...but we have our own design.

and pro tem mods. and a site sponsor.

Rand al'Thor

05:14

@NorthLæraðr Hmm, I've skipped the review for the wiki. I'm really not sure if all those restrictions/criteria you've placed are necessarily true (a symbol must be a physical thing, must be specific, and so on), and I don't feel knowledgeable enough to approve or reject that.

Perhaps someone more expert like @GarethRees or @Tsundoku can review that suggested edit.

Gareth Rees

06:59

I think it's a good attempt, and I like the Lady Macbeth example, but overall it is too prescriptive and specific for our needs. We are not writing a handbook of literary terms, but categorizing questions, and a broad brush is more useful than a narrow pencil. We don't really want to get into detailed arguments about whether a question is about a symbol or a metaphor—close enough is good enough

Rand al'Thor

07:31

You articulated it much better than I could :-)

12 hours left to vote in the election!

2

Bookworm

08:31

0

Q: Was the Ayah paid partly in clothes, and was this standard practice?

In R. K. Narayan's short story "A Willing Slave" (which I read as part of his 1982 collection Malgudi Days), the old lady known simply as "the Ayah" takes care of many responsibilities, but her main duty is to look after the young girl Radha. The story says: Her main job, for which she receiv...

short-stories cultural-context r-k-narayan

Tsundoku

10:02

@NorthLæraðr "Symbols are physical things" is really too restrictive. For example, if we take the number 666 as the number of the beast, then it is not a physical thing.

Since the concept of "symbol" has evolved over the ages (at least, that's one of the things I vaguely remember from studying literature at university, a long time ago), I would like to know what your sources are.

"How has the concept of symbol (in literature) evolved through the ages?" might be a valid question on this site, except that I fear it would require a book-length answer.

To the best of my knowledge, a symbol does not need to be tangible; the "thing" it represents can also be either tangible or intangible. As far as I know, there can even be several layers. Unfortunately, I can't currently edit the tag wiki excerpt to make these corrections.

@Bookworm I thought I had seen this question before but I can't find it. In fact, I even did research into it at some point.

Rand al'Thor

10:24

@Bookworm Interesting, that's an improved version of a previous closed/deleted question.

@Tsundoku Ah, I found it by chance ^ Since searching deleted posts doesn't work for non-mods, you can search chat to find old deleted questions.

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor Thanks. Now I know I didn't just imagine it!

Rand al'Thor

I found it while trying to find if we had a discussion previously on how to tag Faust questions. It seems we didn't.

There's faust which is for Goethe's Faust, and now dr-faustus which is for Marlowe's. Is this a case for using tags which include the author's name for disambiguation? Apparently I originally created doctor-faustus-marlowe, but the system swallowed it at some point.

Again I'm not an expert in the subject of these tags, so I'll leave that decision to those who are :-)

Tsundoku

We might use doctor-faustus for Marlowe's play and faust-part-one and faust-part-two for Goethe's plays.

But dr-faustus sounds too much dr-who to me ;-)

Tsundoku

11:00

Oh, we already have a tag for Goethe's faust.

Tsundoku

11:10

That reminds me of that German joke that those who despise literature have not yet "experienced" Goethe's Faust. "Faust" is also German for fist.

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku You can now. The pending edit has been rejected, so both the wiki and excerpt are now available to edit.

Bookworm

2

Q: Is Daisy's Gorilla game based on a real game?

In Part Two of R. K. Narayan's novel The Painter of Signs, Raman and Daisy visit a remote village, after which they return to Malgudi. Due to unforeseen circumstances, they need to spend a night on the road, Daisy sleeping in a bullock cart and Raman sleeping under it. The next morning, Raman dis...

cultural-context r-k-narayan the-painter-of-signs

Tsundoku

OK, I'm diving in.

Napoleon Wilson

Which is also why Dr. Faust was the nickname of one of the Klitschko brothers. ;-)

(The one with the PhD, of course.)

Tsundoku

I didn't know that about the nickname or the PhD. Makes me wonder whether anyone ever called Dolph Lundgren "Master Faust".

Rand al'Thor

11:22

Congrats @Mithical on Socratic!

(managed not to double-Mith-ping this time)

Tsundoku

There's only five people who have posted more than 100 questions on this site; after that, the highest number appears to be 63.

Gallifreyan

@Bookworm HNQ again

Tsundoku

So I have modified the symbolim wiki excerpt a bit. The tag wiki can be expanded later.

@Gallifreyan Thankfully, it already has a good answer :-)

Mithical

13:04

@Randal'Thor Thanks

Rand al'Thor

13:27

@Tsundoku Five? Who's the one that doesn't have Socratic yet?

Tsundoku

14:27

@Randal'Thor The Invisible Man? It's actually just four people according to Area 51.

Mithical

Rand has two Socratic badges, which is probably what tripped you up.

North Læraðr

14:53

@Tsundoku hmmm alright

@Mithical oh WOW Rand

show off

Tsundoku

@Mithical Either that or doing too many things in parallel. Multitasking doesn't really work :-/

@NorthLæraðr I assume Randal'Thor reused some of the questions he had posted in the first instance of LitSE, in addition to posting new ones, at a rate of exactly one per day, so 100 would suffice to get the Socratic badge. And I think Mithical sometimes posted more than one question per day, so it required more questions to get the Socratic badge.

Rand al'Thor

15:13

@Tsundoku The first instance of LitSE closed long before I joined the SE network :-)

Napoleon Wilson

It is absolutely terrible that they have been made multi-awardable. This entirely annulls the achievement of getting them and instead of resting yourself on ticking off another big badge from the list you're just sent on a hunt to get it again. ;-)

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor Oh, really? That makes those two Socratic badges even more impressive!

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson Surely incentivising people to keep posting good questions forever is a good thing? No resting on your laurels ;-)

Tsundoku

Fortunately, those badges are virtual. Imagine needing to buy a bigger jacket because you've run out of space for all those badges.

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku Just means I've asked more than 200 questions. In fact I'm closing in on 300; might get a third Socratic badge in the next few weeks.

EJoshuaS has asked almost 200, but he often posts several in one go, so he's probably not close to a second Socratic.

Tsundoku

15:16

Just look at this guy: i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/07/27/…

Napoleon Wilson

@Tsundoku <yawn>

Skooba

love the guy who had to move to his pants for placement

Tsundoku

@NapoleonWilson That almost constitutes armour. I hope their backs are also covered ;-)

Napoleon Wilson

I see that I could earn a gold badge this very day. But I don't want to go all Jon Mark Perry for the last 30 votes.

Tsundoku

Jon Mark Perry?

Rand al'Thor

15:24

Heh.

Mithical

There's a name I haven't thought of in.... months

Napoleon Wilson

The dude who has exactly 600 upvotes on exactly 600 questions on about every single SE site.

Tsundoku

> <yawn>

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical Not spending enough time on Puzzling then.

Mithical

Indeed

Rand al'Thor

15:37

@Skooba Pants in the American sense, I hope.

Skooba

@Randal'Thor trousers? does that word work better?

Tsundoku

@NapoleonWilson Pity SE doesn't have 600 sites. Imagine: 360 000 upvotes.

Napoleon Wilson

True.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson If anything it's election candidates who should be snapping up badges now, for their candidate scores ;-)

Napoleon Wilson

I pity the fool who can't get himself 600 Electorate badges.

Rand al'Thor

15:46

But perhaps the last votes have already been cast by now anyway. That trickle of new votes has died completely.

Tsundoku

I was a bit surprised to see that I had / have only two moderation badges.

Napoleon Wilson

I didn't even look at these.

Rand al'Thor

Apparently Cleanup (rollback an edit) counts as a moderation badge.

Skooba

my moderation score went up 1

Rand al'Thor

And the silver/gold badges for flagging and reviewing.

And Sportsmanship, for some reason.

@Skooba Because of your rep.

Skooba

15:52

oh man no more downvotes until the election is over then!

Rand al'Thor

6 mins ago, by Rand al'Thor

But perhaps the last votes have already been cast by now anyway. That trickle of new votes has died completely.

Tsundoku

I'm still 30 flags short for "Deputy", for example.

Skooba

I'm not risking it, perhaps our allies from the outer rims will reach us in time!

Mithical

Candidate scores aren't everything.

Napoleon Wilson

How fitting.

Rand al'Thor

15:58

@Mithical At least better than rep alone as a factor.

Skooba

it is at least something quantifiable, but yes the "soft skills" are where a moderators true talents lie

Tsundoku

Candidate scores aren't everything, but most voters haven't been very active on this site for many months (sometimes even one or two years) and there hasn't been any discussion between nominees and voters, so I assume voters looked a lot at candidate scores and reps.

Napoleon Wilson

Possiblesby, yes.

North Læraðr

ELECTION ENDS IN 3 HOURS!

Napoleon Wilson

O_O

North Læraðr

16:04

I'm not biased I just want (cough cough mumble cough) to win

Tsundoku

Well, you've already won the Talkative badge :-)

Mithical

May the odd be ever in your favor, and let the best candidate win... or however it goes.

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku Are you surprised?

Skooba

that is interesting because (cough cough mumble cough) is my real name

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical May the Ood be ever in your favour.

Tsundoku

16:07

Reminds me of that old joke: May the best win, but may the others be worse than me.

Mithical

@Randal'Thor #Cthulhu2020

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku Too many words. Just say, "I'm the best, so Imma win"

Rand al'Thor

@Skooba You should have mentioned in your nomination that your name is "a books" backwards.

@NorthLæraðr Ever heard of subtlety? ;-)

@Mithical He lost in 2016.

North Læraðr

18 hours ago, by Napoleon Wilson

Requiring other people to nominate you would just be odd. Having some dude point at you and saying "this guy should do it"? Either you want the job or you don't. No need for false modesty.

"No need for false modesty"

@Skooba Sorry, I said (cough cough mumble cough) not (cough cough mumble cough)

Very different

Rand al'Thor

Scoughba.

Skooba

16:10

ah yes, our fierce inflected rivals!

North Læraðr

Hehe

Okay, I'm starting to think I might be talking a little too much here. I've talked more than Skooba in like... 3 weeks? About a third of how much Tsundoku has posted here?

Mithical

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/1037/…

Napoleon Wilson

Well, Skooba didn't talk much until about a week ago. And if your search is name-based, I wouldn't make much about the Tsundoku comparison either.

Mithical

The bottom right number is total number of messages in the room on each userbox.

Skooba

I did and then I didn't

Now I do again

Tsundoku

16:15

@NorthLæraðr I last changed my username a few weeks before the election.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical So Napoleon has talked here more than Tsundoku?

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku Ah, when you change your name does it reset the talk count?

Mithical

@Randal'Thor Yep.

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr No.

The talk count is associated to a user link, not a particular name.

North Læraðr

That was hella confusing lol

Ah okay

Mithical

16:16

Napoleon's posted 2.3k messages here, Tsundoku 1.7k, Skooba 452, and North 488.

Rand 11.9k and I've posted 7.4k.

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr I think Mith's "Yep" was in reply to me :-)

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Yeah, I think so too

Rand al'Thor

Also, usernames are non-unique.

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/19832/…

North Læraðr

Not confusing at all

Tsundoku

There are several Tsundokus or tsundokus on other sites, e.g. on Stack Overflow, where I am less active. But I'm the only one whose head is a Moai flowerpot.

Napoleon Wilson

16:19

It's probably also the name of about 5 different anime characters.

Tsundoku

I should grow vegetables in there. Would be more useful during quarantine. I don't eat grass. I don't even smoke it, for that matter.

Rand al'Thor

Ah but do you grass people up?

Tsundoku

Well, I know only this tsundoku, which fits my living room.

Napoleon Wilson

I know, I know.

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor Huh? Does flagging on SE count?

Rand al'Thor

16:22

@Tsundoku I just noticed that the image at the bottom of that page (in the "Book collecting" box) is @BESW's avatar.

@Tsundoku Ha, maybe.

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor I hadn't even looked closely at the bottom of that page. I envy him for that avatar.

Rand al'Thor

17:22

@Gallifreyan The May-June event in the sidebar says "topic chalenge" :-/ Is it possible to edit that, or does it need to be removed and re-added?

Gallifreyan

17:53

@Randal'Thor Thanks for spotting that. I've edited it now

Rand al'Thor

Thanks!

@Bookworm That's the quickest Popular Question we've had for a loooong time, I think.

Gallifreyan

Took it only 9 hours

What are our other recent HNQs?

Rand al'Thor

Several of the Narayan questions have HNQed.

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Your question only took 8.5 hours to go to HNQ

Rand al'Thor

Even North's self-answered question HNQed briefly.

@Gallifreyan Well, questions are only HNQ-eligible after the first 8 hours nowadays. Usually you can see it's going to go there even before, but you need to wait for the 8-hour mark anyway.

Oh, and the two recent Macbeth questions both HNQed.

And the Derry question.

We've had a lot of HNQs lately.

North Læraðr

17:59

@Randal'Thor Wait seriously?

Tsundoku

I guess Maskbeth is trending nowadays.

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Must've been only briefly, because it didn't net you many votes/views.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Yeah...

Oh well (shrugs)

What exactly is a HNQ

Tsundoku

HNQ = Hot Network Question.

It shows up in the sidebar on other SE sites.

North Læraðr

So... a question that gets veiwed a lot in that SE site gets featured?

Mithical

18:02

North Læraðr

... it's blank

Tsundoku

@Mithical Spoiler?

North Læraðr

>! Spoilers?

Mithical

It just shows up badly. It's a link to the main SE.com domain that oneboxes weirdly.

Try clicking it.

North Læraðr

Ah

How do you get on a HNQ

Rand al'Thor

18:04

@NorthLæraðr There's an algorithm which determines "hotness points" for a question. With some added caveats, sufficiently "hot" questions on a site go to the Hot Network Questions list which shows in the sidebar of every site displaying titles and site icons from across the network.

North Læraðr

Interesting

Rand al'Thor

Basically it's about question score and number/score of answers.

So if a question gets a good answer fast, it's more likely to go HNQ.

North Læraðr

hm

Ooh, elections are over in less than an hour! So excited

We should throw a party afterwards

throws confetti while screaming

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Less than 2 hours, unless I have my timezones muddled.

Gareth Rees

The HNQ for the Marlowe question is leading to users joining the site just to add argumentative comments.

Tsundoku

18:06

@NorthLæraðr There will be diamonds! At least for some of us.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Nah, check the elections

Rand al'Thor

@GarethRees Plenty of comment flags for the new mods to handle?

@NorthLæraðr It says ending at 20:00 UTC and it's 18:07 UTC now.

North Læraðr

oh...

Gareth Rees

Haha, I am keeping my finger off the flag button for now, but those comments are neither welcoming nor apropos—it is in fact a good question

North Læraðr

No

Tsundoku

18:08

Countdown to ecstasy

Gallifreyan

According to the counter we haven't had any new votes for a few days now. It's still on 107

North Læraðr

Huh

I guess everyone had their votes in early

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical Wow, when you hover over a reply to it, it appears like a ghost.

North Læraðr

Yeah, I noticed that

Rand al'Thor

Ghosting link

North Læraðr

18:13

Woah, I didn't know you could post GIFs here

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan Yep. Looks like @steelersquirrel might be the last voter.

Gallifreyan

I missed Ms. Squirrel here :(

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Can be uploaded just like any other images. They can get a bit annoying on loop though ... sorry about that.

North Læraðr

True

hm, how do we hype the New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

Because it's only have like 108 views with 4 upvotes (I don't know the ratio, but I assume it's +4/0)

And... I'm the only user that's starred it. So...

Rand al'Thor

More to the point, not many votes on the answers, the proposals themselves.

North Læraðr

18:17

Exactly

Four answers with three upvotes...

Rand al'Thor

Back in 2017, we had topic challenge proposals scoring 10+ before they got chosen and deleted from the suggestions list.

North Læraðr

Wow

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr There's even more than three people who posted answers in that thread.

North Læraðr

How do we pick in a tie?

Currently, we have: Tsundoku, Randy, Peter Shor, Me, and heather

Apparently people don't want to read older, non-European works

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Uh? The Tale of Genji and Shahnameh are among the top voted there.

@NorthLæraðr Hopefully someone breaks it before the next challenge is chosen.

North Læraðr

18:22

@Randal'Thor Oh, you misunderstood me. I'm not talking about the proposals, I'm talking about the general community

Rand al'Thor

Oh, you mean people aren't much interested in the whole concept of these topic challenges?

North Læraðr

Yeah.

Rand al'Thor

Mm, maybe.

North Læraðr

I think it might seem boring or intimidating (it sure intimidates me a little) to read works from very foreign works

Rand al'Thor

:-/

I find it fascinating to learn about new and foreign cultures, in any context, so I can't really get that.

2

North Læraðr

18:24

I actually have a topic suggestion I'm thinking of that's a YA novel called Children of Blood and Bone. Takes place in a fictional world based upon African mythology

Really, really cool

Tsundoku

My point of view is that the reading challenges create questions that attract more diverse users in the long run. Which is why it is important that we keep creating challenges for non-Western or non-English works.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor I am too, but like other people might like to stay with what they're familiar with

That book came out fairly recently. The sequel came out last beginning of this year and it's so good

Rand al'Thor

ponders suggesting American Gods as a topic challenge because it touches on so many different Old World cultures and religions

North Læraðr

heheh, but the point of Reading Challenge is also to propose works that's not too well known?

Though Ig my YA novel might not count under these criteria :P

Tsundoku

Some of the reading challenges have motivated me to read works that I had never heard of or would never have read otherwise. Nalo Hopkinson was one of the greatest revelations in this sense.

Gallifreyan

18:28

It appears the most popular challenge to date in terms of question count is still the first one

North Læraðr

Ooooh, anyone here have heard or read of the Arc of the Scythe trilogy (looking at you @Mithical )

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Personally I probably wouldn't upvote "a 2018 young adult fantasy novel by [an] American novelist" as a topic challenge, but others might.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor okok

She's Nigerian-American

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan Ah, them were the days ...

Mithical

@Randal'Thor meh

North Læraðr

18:29

I think

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical Yeah, that wasn't serious :-)

North Læraðr

Well we have a lead now, it seems. Four upvotes for the Shanameh

Gallifreyan

If memory serves, DVK was going to post an epic answer to one of the hard-to-be-a-god questions

I think it might have been this one, where he already did

Or this one, which he also already answered.

Weird

Rand al'Thor

Only one of them is still unanswered.

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor I don't think it was that one

It has to be something specifically about the parallels between the book and the Soviet times, so I figured it'd be among the ones I just posted here

I should get my act together and write up an answer to that last unanswered question as well

There's no explicit answer in the book, but I think we can infer some things from their other books set at the same fictional period

Problem is, I haven't gotten to reading those yet

Tsundoku

18:40

@NorthLæraðr There have been a few exceptions to the rule that we don't pick well-known English-language authors for reading challenges, e.g. William Blake and Ursula Le Guin (due to her recent death at the time). But usually, we vote for things that are more out of the way.

North Læraðr

19:04

@Tsundoku mm

Rand al'Thor

Anyway, we got a few more votes on topic challenge proposals just during this conversation.

Two of them are now scoring 4, and more of them have risen to 2 or 3.

North Læraðr

Ooh, Korean Folklore has risen to 3

I'm crossing my fingers for Tales of Genji

Tsundoku

After checking what the languages of the reading challenges have been so far, English is still clearly dominant.

Rand al'Thor

I have two more proposals from the old thread that I still want to copy over. But as they were more controversial than the ones I've already copied over, I need time to make some edits to the text of the proposals first.

Advil Sell

can someone suggest good book with epic magic duel and wand magic

Tsundoku

19:08

The second most popular languages after English is ... Chinese. We haven't head reading challenges for works in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Czech, ...

North Læraðr

@AdvilSell Harry Potter. Duh

XD (hides from Mith)

Rand al'Thor

@AdvilSell Other than Harry Potter, you mean? ;-)

Advil Sell

@Randal'Thor Yes , ofc :-)

Tsundoku

That's not my cup of mead :-/

Advil Sell

@Tsundoku :-(

North Læraðr

19:12

@Tsundoku Some butterbeer, perhaps?

Rand al'Thor

@AdvilSell Shout-out for The Divide trilogy by Elizabeth Kay. The plot isn't about people fighting each other with magic, but there's a lot of wand magic involved, and I loved those stories.

Advil Sell

@Randal'Thor Thanks ! looks great , I will try finding these near me

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku I think we have only one portuguese-literature question on the site, which was asked by me when I was hunting for something to ask in order to populate that tag.

I remember proposing a Czech topic challenge, but maybe it was one of the unsuccessful ones.

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor Are you sure that wasn't Miroslav Krleža, who was Croatian? Or are you referring to a different suggestion?

Rand al'Thor

@AdvilSell If you want something more gritty with duels and so on, I'll grudgingly mention Trudi Canavan's Black Magician trilogy. Just don't read anything else by her afterwards, because you'll quickly realise she can only write one story and just recycles it into series after series. My opinion of that author is very low now, but if you just read her bestselling series it's not so bad.

@Tsundoku Ah, you're right. Central European countries with names beginning with C. My apologies to all Czechs and Croats.

Tsundoku

19:25

I think that author's work was too hard to find in libraries.

Rand al'Thor

I proposed it because I saw it was a topic of current academic research.

Think I might even have seen a literary academic friend of mine talking about it / studying it.

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor Now we have a three-way tie, with four votes each: The Shahnameh, Korean Folkore, The Tale of Genji.

North Læraðr

! My Korean Folklore?

Rand al'Thor

No, Mr South's Korean folklore.

:-P

North Læraðr

19:41

@Randal'Thor It could be a Miss, Ms., Mrs., or... what's a gender neutral title thingy

Rand al'Thor

It could be, but the person I just invented happens to be a Mr.

North Læraðr

But what if South Korea identifies itself as a gender other than Mr.?

Ah, wait South Korea's probably a Mr., the culture's hella patriarchial

Rand al'Thor

I didn't want to comment on the new meaning your username took on after you revealed the Korean connection ;-)

@NorthLæraðr I thought South Korea has/had a female president/PM/leader/whatever?

North Læraðr

Har har, I'm not from North Korea

@Randal'Thor Yeah, and unfortunately, they found out she was corrupt :/. Apparently she was embezzling funds or something to some cult groups.

Rand al'Thor

Ah, that one.

North Læraðr

19:49

@Randal'Thor No, Korea has a VERY strong presence of Confucianism that trickled into their culture. The culture's very patriarchal, and the traditional culture has very strong gender roles and stereotypes for women

To put into perspective, a wife was only considered "useful" or "blessed" if they gave birth to a son. Obviously not that extreme anymore (at least in the modern areas) but you can sense the impact today

Rand al'Thor

Nice Portuguese suggestion, @Tsundoku - upvoted.

@NorthLæraðr Did a female president help to combat those gender stereotypes? Or are that culture's stereotypes somehow OK with women politicians/leaders even if not with women in other roles?

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor I doubt that a female president helped to combat gender stereotypes. The problem with Korean culture is that it's... two-faced? On the outside, most people would appear to be OK with a woman president, but internally a lot of bigotry exists

I remember distinctly m grandfather (from my dad's side) muttering under his breath about how it's not "right' that a woman is leading the country

Having a woman as a president didn't really change anybody's mind about how they feel, it just changed what they said so they don't get backlashed by the international community.

How a woman became president in Korea is beyond me. Perhaps it's the younger population that voted more? Or more women voted? I'm not sure.

Tsundoku

That reminds me that many people were disappointed by Obama because he did not do much to combat racism in the USA. See We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

North Læraðr

Maybe the opposing candidate was just that bad that they thought "Even a woman is better than the other dude"

Rand al'Thor

> election ends
in 2 minutes

North Læraðr

19:57

YEEEE

Skooba

T

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku Racism, gender stereotype, prejudice.... You can't really get rid of it, they just manifest in different ways

I mean, I think what happened to SE's reaction to the change in Code of Conduct is a perfect example

New Topic Challenge Suggestion

1

A: New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

Os Lusíadas / The Lusiads Os Lusíadas by Luís Vaz de Camões is one great classics of Portuguese literature. This epic poem, first published in 1572, "celebrates the discovery of a sea route to India by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (1469–1524)" (Wikipedia). The text can be easily found...

Skooba

why does Project Gutenberg block people from Germany?

North Læraðr

Wait... when does results come out...

Skooba

20:04

seems like they should change the name then

North Læraðr

Project Glutenberg, perhaps?

Skooba

opavote.com/results/4729808539877376/0

Tsundoku

@Skooba See chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/1037?m=54091535#54091535

Skooba

I think it was what we all expected

North Læraðr

Eyyyy confetti shower!

Congrats to @Tsundoku and @Randal'Thor for becoming Literature Stack Exchanges next two Pro Tempore Moderators!

5

Skooba

20:07

@Tsundoku so instead of blocking access to the books they blocked access to the whole country?

Tsundoku

@Skooba It's absurd, but yes, that appears to be what they did. I installed the Tor browser to get around it, but the pages just wouldn't load (server timeouts?).

Napoleon Wilson

Yes, because they are pissed and want to fight their battle on the backs of the German populace.

Rand al'Thor

Congrats @Tsundoku, and thanks @heather and @Skooba for making a good contest :-)

Skooba

heck of a way to stand your ground.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor You won with a landslide, what do you mean

@Skooba It was pretty close three way though

Tsundoku

20:10

I don't understand the concept of the "rounds" but I accept the outcome of the vote :-)

North Læraðr

I have NO IDEA how this election system works. I'm so confused

Napoleon Wilson

@Tsundoku It's how they redistribute your remaining votes once your primary candidate reached his required votes.

North Læraðr

Lol, was it redundant to put Rand as second then

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr There's an info page about it somewhere, I think. Or you can look up STV / Single Transferable Vote.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor I did, but I didn't understand it :P

Napoleon Wilson

20:12

The details are a bit intricate, also statistics is blurgh. But the general concept isn't too difficult.

Rand al'Thor

Basically, there's a threshold beyond which you win. Every time someone goes over that threshold with 1st votes, the 2nd votes of whoever voted for them are proportionally distributed among the other candidates. If nobody goes over in a given round, the candidate with fewest 1st votes is eliminated and again the 2nd votes are proportionally distributed among the others.

North Læraðr

Oh, I see

So it was redundant to put Randy as a second choice.

Rand al'Thor

Well, depends who your first choice was. If it was Skooba, then your second vote would've gone to me when he was eliminated.

North Læraðr

I'm not going to say who the other two I voted for was, for the sake of voter anonymity, but I'm still confused

No matter, congrats! I'm very happy for both of you.

Now with the wise words of Spiderman's Uncle

"With great power comes great responsibility"

Napoleon Wilson

I voted for a single one only. ;-)

Tsundoku

20:19

Hmm, review queues are empty :-(

~~Common people~~ Come on, people, give me some work to do! <---That's what they call a Freudian slip.

Skooba

why are fractions of votes?

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku Lmao

Napoleon Wilson

Because the vote threshold is fractional?

Or rather because you have to distribute everyone's 2nd votes equally whenever the threshold is reached.

Skooba

oh because 50% of 107 is 53.5?

Gareth Rees

Congratulations to the new mods

Skooba

20:22

technically neither of them are new mods, just new to the site XD

Gareth Rees

Of the 40 possible unique ballots only 31 were cast

Napoleon Wilson

When 30% of overall 1st votes are over the threshold, you have to basically give 30% of everyone's 2nd votes to the respective people. Something like that.

North Læraðr

@Skooba lol

"They'll be joining the existing crew shortly—please thank them for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with them as they learn the ropes!" -Catjia

@Tsundoku @Randal'Thor I have an advice. Don't f* up.

Napoleon Wilson

Well, it's not an existing crew either. ;-)

Tsundoku

@NorthLæraðr Why would we do that anyway?

North Læraðr

20:26

Can we get an f in the chat for the One Man Army Gallifreyan?

@Tsundoku I just thought it was good to remind you, we all forget

Rand al'Thor

Three cheers for @Gallifreyan, carrying the site all alone for many months!

5

North Læraðr

Cheer cheer cheer

Tsundoku

Three cheers and as much confetti as he can handle!

Gareth Rees

Yes, thank you to the old mod

North Læraðr

Also shoutout to @Mithical for their dedication, and contribution to the community!

Skooba

20:29

@Tsundoku Hip Hip... Horray

North Læraðr

Where's the confetti? YEETS confetti

Skooba

YEET! kids these days

North Læraðr

Yee

►

b_jonas

20:42

So Rand and Tsundoku got elected as moderators?

North Læraðr

Yup!

New Topic Challenge Suggestion

0

A: New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

The Works of Carlo Goldoni Carlo Goldoni (1707 – 1793) was a playwright and librettist who lived in the Republic of Venice. His libretti include one for La finta semplice, an opera Mozart composed at the age of 12, and one for Vivaldi's opera Griselda. His best-known play is possibly The Servant...

Librarian

3

Q: 2020 Community Moderator Election Results

Literature's first moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied and the two new moderators are: They'll be joining the existing crew shortly—please thank them for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with them as they learn the ropes! For details on how ...

discussion election

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