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CowperKettle
CowperKettle
3:29 AM
 
 
2 hours later…
bobble
bobble
5:19 AM
No matter how many times I re-read this thing, I'll probably leave a grammar error in. Given that, I'll re-read it one more time. Couldn't hurt. Right?
 
bobble
bobble
5:48 AM
WAIT I THINK I FOUND A YEAR
Assuming Day 5 is the last day of May (which is reasonable, either Day 5 or Day 6 is) then there is a full moon on June 4. Which 1974 has. Also I assumed that the last day of the story is Day 95. Which would put in on a Thursday in 1974.
Maybe I'm seeing things that don't exist
Because the novel came out before 1974 anyways
But
putting a note in the answer anyhow
also this full moon calendar is specifically for central Europe...
I got too excited didn't I
No, I won't put it in the answer
Too implausible
well now this excited meltdown is on public record in a chatroom
well
well.
I posted the answer. I'll go to sleep now
 
verbose
verbose
6:36 AM
Wanna share my opinion that we should not be revising questions that are obviously OT for the site in the hope of making them suitable, for example this one or this one. The community has cast votes on them, and it's up to the OP to revise to meet our guidelines.
This is a long-standing issue with us, actually; edits made such that they completely change the question the OP asked, in some cases after answers has been provided:
8
Q: Is it fair to change a question after an answer has been provided?

verboseWhen this question was originally asked, the poster was wondering what to say about Keats's "To Autumn", as in his opinion there wasn't a whole lot to the poem. I spent about two hours putting together a response showing that in fact, the OP had missed the depth of the poem. After my answer was p...

discussion
The first guideline in the answer to that meta question says: Do not change the question's meaning. We really should not be doing that. The question has been asked, and It's up to the OP to revise. I don't think drastically changing a question just for our sake is good policy.
I edit questions to: (1) add links to the source (2) correct grammar, spelling, etc. (3) remove editorializing like "this is a wonderful piece of work by a great author, it really captures the meaning of life, it reminds me of this other poem, oh by the way, here's the actual question". The third sort of edit can be quite intrusive, but it does not change the actual question being asked; it just makes the meat of the question easier to get to.
No doubt there are other good reasons to edit questions too. But revising their actual intent should not be something we routinely do: even if the question becomes qualitatively better, if it thereby becomes a different question altogether, we should refrain.
@bobble Congratulations on a wonderful answer!
 
 
1 hour later…
b_jonas
b_jonas
8:11 AM
@Tsundoku No.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
8:45 AM
@bobble Thank you! I've upvoted already, and will probably bounty it later. Incredible work.
@verbose That's a great issue to raise, maybe worth another meta post: how much editing is too much editing? Again there's (at least) two opposing effects: trying to create the best possible content for our site, and respecting the OP's original intent.
Maybe (?) it's OK to make a drastic edit as long as the OP will still get the answer they need. If they ask a question that shows some naivete, but what they really want to know is X, and we overhaul the question to make it a bit more well-informed but still inviting answers on X, then maybe no real harm is done.
I put "?" because I haven't considered enough examples to propose this as a policy. But sometimes there are questions where the OP seems at first sight to be asking something opinion-based or off-topic, but at heart the kernel of the question is something on-topic and answerable. If we edit to bring that kernel out more clearly, that's usually a good thing.
 
verbose
verbose
9:06 AM
@bobble I think you should put it in the answer. It is very interesting. If you don't want to claim it as fact, at least put it in as a speculation.
@Randal'Thor We should let the OP decide that, yes? We can make suggestions in the comments, or (if we develop the meta help resources that we're talking about in the ongoing meta post) by pointing to resources. But we don't know what the OP wants.
I don't see anything wrong with going to a closed q, saying "this could be a good question," and separately asking that question—after having given the OP a reasonable amount of time to revise the original.
In fact that could be useful. If we ask a separate question saying it was "inspired by" a closed question, then visitors could see for themselves what we consider a valid q and what types of qs get closed.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
9:23 AM
@verbose I was thinking of cases where a quick glance at the question (or even its title) make it seem off-topic, and it attracts close votes because of that, but at its core there's something on-topic being asked. Here of all sites, we should be able to do close reading to ascertain a post's true meaning, no? ;-)
 
verbose
verbose
The close votes and comments can let the OP revise the question, yes? And it is a useful learning experience for the OP to have to revise a question to get it reopened.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Like the Camus background reading question. Even in its original version, the title seems very opinion-based, and so does "some side readings", but "the main books among all the ones he quotes" in order to "better understand" the story - that makes more sense. There's a finite list of books referenced, and presumably (I haven't read it) one could analyse to see which ones are tangentially relevant and which are more important background.
@verbose Playing devil's advocate, the revision history could also teach visitors the same lesson. In fact it would do so more effectively, since a closed question is likely to end up deleted and invisible to visitors.
@verbose True, but what if the OP is a one-shot wonder who doesn't come back?
 
verbose
verbose
9:38 AM
@Randal'Thor I actually don't think that question is salvageable. Engaging in dialogue with an entire philosophical tradition is what philosophers do. Their works assume an audience with knowledge of the tradition they're working with. The Camus question is the equivalent of asking, "What literary works should I read in order to understand Eliot's The Waste Land better? He quotes a lot of them."
@Randal'Thor If a question is linked to a closed question, doesn't the closed question remain visible? I'll wager people are more likely to visit a linked q than the revision history.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
9:56 AM
@verbose Nope, it'll just become a dead link if the closed question gets auto-deleted as most closed unanswered questions do.
 
Mithical
Mithical
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
10:59 AM
@verbose There is a difference between "off topic because of the way the question is asked" and "off topic because the subject matter isn't literature". If it's the former, I tend to try to salvage the question be suggesting or making edits.
 
Bookworm
Bookworm
0
Q: Meanig of "He went ‘Eeeeee!’ high up in his skull"

Viser HashemiThis text is from The children's bach by Helen Garner Billy drew a breath and started to scream in short, sharp cries. He flung himself back on Dexter’s lap; he clapped his left hand over his ear, and bit into the heel of his right hand, held it against his large crooked teeth and pressed, press...

meaning the-childrens-bach helen-garner
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
The 'tis and 'twas question may be an edge case in this regard. Some people chose to close vote it, I chose to salvage it by narrowing the focus on literature.
However, the question about The Rebel was a potentially subjective question that could be saved by rewording it. Reasking a more objective version of it and linking to the original (deleted) one would result in a dead link for every Lit SE user with fewer than 2000 reps (i.e. the majority) and everyone without a Lit SE account.
Neither of those questions was edited after an answer was provided, since they had no answer.
Moving the goalposts after an answer has been submitted is not acceptable, but isn't that very rare on Lit SE?
@verbose Below a certain rep threshold, I think you can't see whether your question has close votes.
@verbose So do people need to be familiar with all philosophy published before The Rebel in order to understand it? Or can we identify a subset that is sufficient to help readers. Same with The Wasteland.
For Camus, some texts that he doesn't even cite, e.g. Grenier, who probably isn't even mentioned in most histories of philosophy.
 
verbose
verbose
12:00 PM
@Tsundoku That's what makes it list- or recommendation-based, surely? If even Camus doesn't mention Grenier, but someone thinks it's important to read Grenier to understand The Rebel, then we're just providing subjective lists.
And it depends on what level of understanding the reader wants. A footnote giving the context of Enobarbus's description of Cleopatra's barge coming down the Nile, and quoting his speech, places the opening of The Waste Land part II sufficiently to get an understanding of what Eliot is doing. Does reading the entirety of Antony and Cleopatra add to that?
So maybe just reading a well-annotated edition of The Rebel is more useful to understanding that work than actually reading a list of texts Camus may or may not cite?
@Tsundoku but it didn't solve the issue, that the question itself is not inherently about literature. That's just what the state of the language was in the 16th and 17th centuries. Besides, those forms persist in dialectal use even today; cf. Frank McCourt.
Details of specific questions are in any case not exactly what I was trying to focus on. I just think that if an OP asks a question, it's up to the OP to revise it, not us. We aren't really in a position to decide what would help the OP. We can guide the OP in the comments (and a close vote always prompts for a comment, doesn't it?) and by pointing to help resources, but if the OP chooses to ignore that and abandon the question, I think that's okay.
If we find that there is a kernel of good stuff in the question, we should indicate that in the comments, and if the OP doesn't take it up, well, once the question is abandoned/deleted, we can ask that question ourselves separately. So I don't see it as a loss for the site to let questions be closed.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@verbose It wouldn't necessarily be opinion based since was Camus's most influential teacher and later professor. That's something you can find in a biography. If you can also establish this influence in the text, it is not opinion based, in my opinion.
 
verbose
verbose
I actually am quite baffled by how reluctant we are to close questions in general.
@Tsundoku But nothing in the question asks that. It says, of the books Camus cites, which are important to read to understand Camus. If you want to ask a separate question: "Do we know from Camus's biography, intellectual history, or statements, who his most influential mentor is?" that's fine. It is, however, a separate question.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
I believe that questions that are closed as opinion-based or insufficiently focused are rarely improved by the original asker. Editing can save them. Should we just let them go to waste instead? (Or re-ask a better version?)
 
verbose
verbose
@Tsundoku I don't think they're going to waste if we re-ask a better version.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
12:16 PM
@verbose OK, perhaps I should re-edit? ;-) After all, the original version did not explicitly ask to limit that list to books that are explicitly cited.
 
verbose
verbose
I don't understand how closed questions that already have answers work. I still see them on any number of sites—I myself have a half dozen or so answers on SO that I gave to questions that were subsequently closed as duplicates. Those questions and answers are still up. They're not marked in pink or anything the way some deleted questions or answers are here.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@verbose In that case, they aren't, I agree. But editing improves quality immediately (at least potentially), while waiting until the community closes them means that low-quality questions remain visible for much longer.
 
verbose
verbose
@Tsundoku This is what I mean. We get into an endless cycle of editing and re-editing a bad question just because we have some sort of vested interest in it. That's not good for the OP and I would argue not good for the site. Just ask a new question and let the old one be closed. I don't see why that's a problem.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@verbose Well, I assume that's a "feature". If an answer gets upvotes but the question gets closed, the reps from those upvotes remain available, whereas deleting the question would also delete both the answer and the reps the answerer got from the upvotes. I guess the system does not want to punish good-faith answers to questions that get closed later (sometimes due to a change of policy months or years later).
 
verbose
verbose
@Tsundoku But it gives the OP a chance to revise the question, which we should be willing to do. If the goal is to be a teaching resource, then I think it's important. Ironic that I'm arguing to leave low-quality questions up there, but there is a balance to be struck between "what's good for the site" and "what's helpful for the users," and it's a question of figuring out where the balance is.
@Tsundoku thanks. And even if a question gets closed, the person who wrote the answer could always ask a better/more relevant one and self-answer it with the answer from the closed question.
I'm trying really hard to understand why there's this desire to rescue questions by editing them either immediately, or resurfacing them months/years later by editing them, instead of just letting them die if the OP isn't interested. What is gained by that, as opposed to simply asking a new question that is on point?
If I were the OP, I'd even be mad that I asked a question, it got ignored/closed/deleted, then months later I'm getting notifications about it, and it isn't even the question I asked any longer but a totally different beast that's somewhat vaguely related.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
12:25 PM
@verbose You can get reps from posting questions and I don't want to get the accusation, "Hey, you closed my question and reposted it under your ow account to increase your reps!"
 
verbose
verbose
@Tsundoku That wouldn't become an issue if we had explained in the comments and by providing help resources what the OP should have done to improve the question to reopen it. OP didn't show interest by following up, the question got deleted, we were interested, we took it up.
In any case, by editing a question to be something the OP didn't ask, and then providing an answer, you're open to the same accusation: "you just changed my question so you could get rep on your answer."
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@verbose "editing a question to be something the OP didn't ask": that puts it as a black-and-white issue, which, in my opinion, it isn't.
 
verbose
verbose
@Tsundoku I think the specific questions we're discussing here, going back to the "To Autumn" question back in private beta, all have at some point or other been in a state completely unrecognizable from what the OP asked. We just keep re-editing.
How many times has the Hamlet and misogyny question gone through this?
On an unrelated note, @Tsundoku, you gave me an excuse to re-read the Paolo and Francesca episode of The Inferno earlier tonight, for which many thanks.
Speaking of the Inferno, I may have mentioned this before, but I worked at a college (Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN) where, above the book drop mounted on the exterior wall of the library for returns, there was a l'lle bronze plaque that said: lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. Still makes me chuckle
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@verbose I upvoted your answer. Around the time I posted that question, I read at least two dozen of Eliot's other essays but didn't become much wiser. Eliot was a smart reader, but his essays often leave me a bit unsatisfied.
 
verbose
verbose
yeah, he's very fuzzy as an essayist. Sweeping claims, imprecise language, no evidence provided.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
12:39 PM
@verbose But you still got out. Did you climb all the way down, make a 180 degree turn at the centre and climb back up again in the other direction? ;-)
@verbose Precisely.
 
verbose
verbose
And see, @Randal'Thor, I can write non-verbose answers when I deem it necessary to do so.
@Tsundoku Oh this was above the book drop. I never crawled through the flap of the book drop, so I didn't have to attempt the maneuver you suggest. I did have occasion to drop books through that slot, and indeed I don't recall seeing any of them again.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
It's funny. When people tell me people in the Middle Ages thought the earth was flat, I cite the Divine Comedy and challenge them to name a medieval text that assumes a flat earth. They never can.
 
verbose
verbose
@Tsundoku Thomas Friedman was 52, or middle-aged, when he wrote The World is Flat. Does that count?
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@verbose As evidence that the flat-earth theory was invented after the Middle Ages? Possibly. ;-)
(Atually, people in Mesopotamia thought the earth was flat.)
 
verbose
verbose
@Tsundoku Driving across Nebraska and Nevada did make me wonder about that as well. Cornfields and sand (respectively) in all directions as far as the eye could see.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
12:58 PM
@verbose Any question can be deleted by a mod, and any closed question can be deleted by sufficiently many high-rep users (at least 3, more if it has a lot of upvotes/answers). But most closed questions are auto-deleted by the Community bot, according to some criteria that decide which questions get roombaed.
@Tsundoku I agree with verbose on the 'tis/'twas question; it's more about language than literature. Maybe we can migrate it to ELU and mark it as a duplicate of this?
Also, we're now below 1100 unanswered questions again.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
The 'tis and 'twas question has four close votes, so migration would be fine.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Done, and voted to close as duplicate.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
1:23 PM
> There. We’ve done math in English class and it made a modicum of sense! (Bobble)
Both "on topic" and "off topic" can be abbreviated to "OT" but the convention is that "OT" always means "off topic".
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
1:40 PM
Or Original Trilogy, in some contexts :-)
 
verbose
verbose
Hey @Tsundoku, is it true that the German translation of Barthes's S/Z is called ß?
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
1:56 PM
I still have that book on my reading list because of that question. Haven't gotten around yet to start reading it.
 
verbose
verbose
@Tsundoku I'm deeply disappointed. Where do I complain? Is there an online form I can fill out?
 
 
1 hour later…
Bookworm
Bookworm
3:21 PM
0
Q: Meaning of "Air rushed over the ground like a flood of water at blood temperature"

Viser HashemiThis text is from The Children's Bach by Helen Garner She made him, and dragged him away across the grass. They turned a corner, rounded a thick hedge, and the wind hit them. He stopped struggling. Air rushed over the ground like a flood of water at blood temperature, and he pulled himself free ...

meaning the-childrens-bach helen-garner
 
bobble
bobble
Unanswered update: 1,099 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@verbose How about here ;-)
3
 
Prince North Læraðr
Prince North Læraðr
Wow
@Tsundoku Did you just make that or did that always exist? :P
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@PrinceNorthLæraðr Custom made :-) Takes just a few minutes, really.
 
Prince North Læraðr
Prince North Læraðr
"405 Not Allowed" :P
Bwahaha it keeps on saying :405 Not Allowed" after I try to submit :P
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
3:32 PM
Wait, I can tweak that a bit.
No, still 405.
 
Prince North Læraðr
Prince North Læraðr
I think it's funnier that way
You write a big rant, submit it, and you get "405 error"
 
Mithical
Mithical
I think that's the point...
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
What's more, the rant must be at least 1024 characters long now.
 
Prince North Læraðr
Prince North Læraðr
@Tsundoku wow, that's mean :P
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@PrinceNorthLæraðr It's meant to be a usability nightmare ("invisible asterisk" etc). I could make it worse by making the textarea and submit button disappear if you pick a specific excuse, but that requires more work.
 
Prince North Læraðr
Prince North Læraðr
3:42 PM
Hehehe
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
3:57 PM
Now I've made it look a bit nicer.
Check the placeholder text.
 
Mithical
Mithical
4:15 PM
@bobble There. I posted an answer I've been meaning to get around to for almost three years. :P
 
bobble
bobble
The count hasn't updated yet for me. I blame caching
 
Mithical
Mithical
it's not upvoted
Both of the answers I've posted today have been self-answers to old questions, and both questions were about a work that's largely about a plague. Hmmm....
 
bobble
bobble
Really? I could've sworn I upvoted it
well I apparently didn't
thanks, brain
still hasn't updated
 
Mithical
Mithical
yeah, I suspect it's cached at least a little bit
advantages of being home due to the roads being closed for snow: time to write answers
 
Mithical
Mithical
4:36 PM
@Tsundoku also, it's about how the colors are portrayed in the story; since the Black Death doesn't feature in the story - and isn't at all relevant to the characters - I really don't think it needs to be taken into account
if the Black Death had indeed been mentioned, that would've complicated things... but it wasn't, and so doesn't affect the portrayal of the color within the context of the story
unless, of course, you can come up with an alternative interpretation that takes the Black Death into consideration, which I would be interested to see
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
4:50 PM
@Tsundoku You should put that on your profile, so that people know where to go if they want to complain about your mod decisions :-P
perspective's tag wiki says:
> Questions about the perspective or perspectives used in works of literature, i.e. the point of view from which a story (or part of it) is told. In other words, "Who is the narrator?" Typical examples are first-person perspective, second-person perspective, third-person perspective and alternative perspective.
Doesn't that make it a synonym of narrator?
 
Bookworm
Bookworm
1
Q: What is this passage saying about Precentor Jahnke?

Rand al'ThorIn Chapter 1 of Theodor Fontane's novel Effi Briest, which I've just started reading online, two friends of Effi are introduced as follows: Two of the young girls, plump little creatures, whose freckles and good nature well matched their curly red hair, were daughters of Precentor Jahnke, who sw...

meaning historical-context theodor-fontane effi-briest
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@Randal'Thor Grin Done!
@Randal'Thor The way both wiki excerpts are worded, that makes them almost undistinguishable. It is possible to make some sort of distinction by pointing out that perspective is just about the perspective as such, while narrator is broader and is (also) about, e.g. the narrator's opinions, hidden agenda, reliability, etc. The question is whether we can expect users to choose the right tag.
@Mithical My point is that the Black Death exists as a concept in the world of the reader (and presumably also in the author's mind), so "White Plague" creates a fictional world where the reader's usual associations are upended. The fact that the text does not mention "Black Death" is therefore irrelevant.
@all How many of you knew that the phrase "Great White Plague" has been used to refer to tuberculosis?
 
bobble
bobble
5:19 PM
@Tsundoku raises hand I got a book with history of infectious diseases and vaccines. Yes I'm a nerd.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@bobble Is it good? Can you recommend it?
 
bobble
bobble
(I'm not sure I learned "Great White Plauge" from that, as I did more research into various topics it brought up that I found interesting)
sure, will look up the title after this school thing
Between Hope and Fear. A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity by Michael Kinch. It has a lot of interesting detours into more obscure bits of history, as a warning.
(as in, some bits end up being only tangentially related to disease/vaccines)
It also has one of my favorite laugh-out-loud moments I've encountered in a history book, when I learned that there is a vial of smallpox under armed guard somewhere in the US.
 
Mithical
Mithical
@Tsundoku In-story, it's not called "White Plague"; it's referred to as the "Big Plague". The color isn't associated with the plague that explicitly; it's more insinuated. My mind, for one, didn't jump to the Black Death because, for me, it had nothing to do with the story; if the story had explicitly named it the White Plague it would've been different. I'm still having trouble with the idea that the Black Death needs to be considered despite having nothing to do with the cultural background.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@Mithical OK, fair enough.
 
Mithical
Mithical
Yes, the author and readers are probably aware that there was something called the Black Death, but since it's not mentioned or referred to within the context of the story or its cultural background, it shouldn't affect the portrayal of the color within the story.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
5:27 PM
@bobble Oh, I'm not sure that's a real drawback :-) (I suppose it depends on the detours.)
 
bobble
bobble
I found about half of the detours (which cluster near the beginning of the book) very interesting and the other half less so
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@Mithical I'm going to have a closer look at that story later.
 
Mithical
Mithical
(thumbsup)
there's a free-to-read link in the question
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
5:43 PM
@Randal'Thor Is the term "precentor" better known or less ambiguous than "cantor" to native speakers of English? (Fontane's original German text says "Kantor".)
 
Mithical
Mithical
I've never heard the term "precentor", but I know what a "cantor" is...
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Based on Wiktionary's definitions, there seems to be no difference between cantor and precentor. I know Kantor/cantor from German and Dutch; precentor is new to me.
But a precentor may have a succentor, apparently.
So I can imagine a succentor responding to a precentor, whereas the cantor's "succentor" is the religious congregation? Just thinking aloud here (by the sound of my keyboard).
In Christianity, the precentor and the succentor appear to be members of the clergy; I don't think a cantor needs to be. (And the root of precentor and succentor is actually 'cantor', but with an 'e'.)
 
 
2 hours later…
Sciborg
Sciborg
7:28 PM
I humbly request the attention of Lit.SE to admire and/or updootle bobble's absolute legend of an answer: literature.stackexchange.com/questions/17343/…
 
bobble
bobble
why do you call it a dootle
 
Sciborg
Sciborg
because it is a funny word
do you protest against my vernacular
 
bobble
bobble
i call you a strange bird
 
Sciborg
Sciborg
how dare you call me something that is thoroughly backed up by months of evidence
 
bobble
bobble
somehow, i do
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
7:59 PM
@Tsundoku Not I.
@Tsundoku I'd never heard either of those words until today. Well, not in that context anyway - to me Cantor is the name of a mathematician.
 
bobble
bobble
I had a vague idea that "cantor" was "a job connected to religion" but couldn't have said what they did
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Euuurgh, what's that ticker feed doing in here?
I thought our new questions feed is a onebox one.
Oh, is it an HNQ feed?
 
bobble
bobble
what are you talking about?
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
 
bobble
bobble
did you subscribe to an RSS feed?
I do not see that
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
8:08 PM
Did you just re-enter the room recently?
I've had the tab open all day, even when I haven't been actively here.
 
bobble
bobble
I did leave and re-enter for a test, but I've been in here for a while (at least 30min)
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
That question went HNQ an hour ago, so maybe the ticker thing appeared when you weren't here.
Btw @bobble, I have to ask. A few hours ago I was browsing some old old posts and happened to downvote an answer, on a post which hasn't been active at all for years. Then an hour ago you flagged the very same answer. How did you find it? Is it pure coincidence, or do you have some way of noticing when an answer's received an extra downvote recently? (Feel free to reply in general terms if you don't want to make public what you've flagged.)
 
bobble
bobble
Sadly, I have no secret powers to find recently-downvoted answers. What I do have is some free time that I spent browsing old posts.
I do have a mechanism that would lead to me flagging an old post, but only for a week or so old. I follow answers that could be improved but are currently terrible, and then flag them after a week of inactivity.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Weird coincidence then.
 
bobble
bobble
I think followed posts are public information, so you could even check up on my list of tracked-for-improvement posts
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
8:20 PM
@bobble Bookmarked posts are, followed posts aren't. Although followed posts are visible to mods, so I could still check your list on this site.
 
bobble
bobble
I flagged an answer once when it was new-ish (a day old) and got a message back saying the answerer should be given time to improve the post, and that comments were the best at the time. So I've been both leaving comments and monitoring to see if they have an effect.
@Randal'Thor files away information in the Random SE Facts part of brain
Bookmarks for me are posts that I plan to answer once I got time
I don't think what I use bookmarks and followed posts for are intended use-cases but it works for me nevertheless
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
I'm not sure what the intended use case(s) are really. People have always used them for various things.
I know at least one mod on another site who always uses bookmarks (or at least did before the new follow thing was introduced) to keep track of bad posts to be closed/deleted later.
 
bobble
bobble
tangentially related: is there a reason that an answer which got 6 "Recommend Deletion" votes (and one "Looks OK" vote) would not be deleted?
this is about a Puzzling answer, but I am curious in general
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@bobble Maybe if it had a positive score?
Linky?
 
bobble
bobble
0
A: Does this equation make sense?

alwayslearningNot moving anything... This doesn't work for the second example.

 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
8:35 PM
Oh I remember that one. It had a positive score when I reviewed it.
Maybe it left the review queue with a score of +1 and then only got downvoted later.
 
bobble
bobble
But why would it leave if nearly everyone agreed it was bad?
It seems to me it should only leave the queue if it's agreed to be good or deleted
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
You could figure it out from checking the timestamp of the DV in the OP's rep history and the timestamp of when it left the queue.
@bobble If a positive-scoring post gets all Delete/Recommend Deletion votes, then it won't be deleted automatically but it will leave the queue and raise an automatic flag to mods.
Probably so that a group of revenge flaggers can't just get rid of any post they want.
 
bobble
bobble
Review completed at 14:43:39 and downvote at 15:21:06.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
There we go.
#SEsleuthing
 
bobble
bobble
To answer-smiths: the comment on this question suggests that the answer is obvious, yet the question languishes without an answer
(also, it isn't obvious to me)
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
9:00 PM
@bobble Presumably the answer to who is the "bosom-friend" is simply autumn.
A more interesting question might (possibly) be why it's called a "bosom-friend" or what's meant by that. But we couldn't really edit the question to ask that instead.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
9:33 PM
@Randal'Thor I changed the HNQ feed to a ticker feed yesterday in an attempt to ... somehow "fix" it. And that "eeee" question is actually in the HNQ RSS feed now: lackadaisical-appeal.glitch.me/hnq/literature.stackexchange.com
 
Gareth Rees
Gareth Rees
10:24 PM
@bobble I've written an answer just for you!
 
bobble
bobble
Thanks!
 
Gareth Rees
Gareth Rees
It is easy to forget how hard comprehension of poetry can be, so thanks for reminding me
 
bobble
bobble
10:58 PM
Should mystery-novels be on identification-request questions that are looking for a mystery story?
There are 13 mystery-novels questions in all and 11 have identification-request
Does the-tempest's tag excerpt really need that long bit of information about why the play is interesting? Seems more like a wiki thing to me. I would edit to add "Use with [william-shakespeare]" but am not sure if I should move the aforementioned information around while I'm at it.
How many tagging questions should bobble ask in chat in one day? Probably less than she does.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@bobble Yeah, maybe that belongs more in the main wiki than the excerpt.
@bobble That tag is another one that should be cleaned up among genre tags if we ever get round to doing that.
 
bobble
bobble
there a reason to not start slowly removing genre tags and adding genre where applicable?
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
11:14 PM
As for its use on ID questions, that might be a habit osmosed over from SFF where ID questions are the main use case for genre/media tags.
@bobble A few weeks or months ago, I was about to start merging all the genre tags into genres, but then Tsundoku posted a new meta answer raising doubts about what is or isn't a genre, and the project sort of stalled.
 
bobble
bobble
link?
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Aug 21 '20 at 14:37, by Rand al'Thor
Tags which would need to be checked, if we go ahead with the genre tagging proposal: comedy, tragedy, historical-romance, mystery-novels, gothic-literature, and probably biography, ergodicity, diary. Any more? (Are those last three truly genres?)
^ that's where I was about to embark on the merge project
(August?!)
4
Q: Should we get rid of specific genre tags for good?

North LæraðrAbout a month back, I've decided to dedicate more time into Literature SE, and have contributed to editing (and still editing) many of the tag excerpt wikis. I've learned a lot about community expectations & guidelines, what we do here, and how we tag things. During my time, however, I noticed so...

discussion tags
^ and that's the relevant meta post
Oh hey, @PrinceNorthLæraðr is on the front page of users by rep! Congrats, tree :-)
 
bobble
bobble
grumbles
77 rep difference
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
11:29 PM
Don't grumble, you're more likely to get a bounty soon for your WD timeline.
 
bobble
bobble
ooh
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Also you two are now overtaking some real high-quality contributors from the early days, like Gilles and Torisuda.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
@Randal'Thor I guess I should take another look at that issue. Hopefully over the weekend.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
No need to rush it :-)
^ that was a continuation of my reply to bobble, but in the transcript it'll now look like a reply to Tsundoku
Works for either, I suppose.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
I thought that was a bit too fast to be a response to my message...
Unrelated: the shortest answer I ever wrote on the SE network was on Latin SE's meta, but it was backed up with a reference!
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
11:37 PM
@Tsundoku I tried to post an answer on SFF meta with one word and a supporting link, but the system kept converting it to a comment.
 
bobble
bobble
My shortest answers are on Puzzling and are bad ones... I was once a lil' new user who didn't know the best practice
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@bobble Weren't we all.
2
Q: Missing number in this sequence?

Rand al'ThorI heard this puzzle in a quiz I participated in: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, ?, 100, 121, 10000 What is the missing number? (You don't need to do any big calculations, and you don't need any advanced mathematical knowledge - just one basic concept that's known to many non-mathem...

mathematics pattern number-sequence
 
bobble
bobble
@Randal'Thor Would copying the current excerpt into the wiki, removing the offending sentence, and adding author-tag usage guidance to the excerpt be good? I feel that might leave too small a wiki to be a proper wiki.
(to be clear, the extra info would be removed from the excerpt and not the wiki)
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@bobble If the current wiki is empty, then yeah, a bit more than just that sentence might be better to make a full wiki.
 
bobble
bobble
In case you're wondering, tagging-bobble is stressing-bobble; I really need to do well on the test I took today. But I can't do anything about it right now. So I'm hunting through tags as a distraction.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
11:54 PM
I should go to bed but I really want to finish an answer ...
 
bobble
bobble
you have a slightly messed-up sleep schedule, dearest Tsundoku
2
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@Tsundoku Is it an answer to my Fontane question, by any chance?
Guessing from the mention of the Hanseatic League.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
You may have guessed right. (As an acquaintance of mine used to say.)
 

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