@BalarkaSen I think you're being unnecessarily apocalyptic. The chat room has no special significance. It's just where people gather to chat because it's entertaining. The room goes through phases of inactivity and high activity and I expect that will continue.
When I first started on the PSE the chat room was essentially dead. The scheduled chat sessions were organised as a desperate attempt to bring some life into it. Over the last few years the room has become a lot busier as a small but vocal group migrated in. In time that group will age and move on, and the room may fall back into disuse or a new group may adopt it.
Either way, it doesn't really matter. If the room becomes comatose again no-one will be heartbroken. The real business is done in the main SE site (which is where SE make their money of course).
@JohnRennie I did not claim that the chat room has any special significance in the sense of being anything more than a place for entertaining conversations, extended conversations about posts in Physics.SE, or being a website which garners any monetary gains for SE.
I simply claimed that it is unfit for being a place for entertaining conversations pertaining to the essence of the Physics.SE community because of the moderation policies that are being acted upon, and predicted what I see as a likely outcome of the whole dispute.
Personally nothing earth-shattering will happen to me or any of the chatters if the room becomes inactive or shut down (in fact I have withdrawn from actively conversing in that room, as I deem my interactions in the Mathematics chat to be important to my learning process, and I don't want to be banned chat-wide for arbitrary reasons).
@BalarkaSen The SE impose restrictions on what can be discussed. They always have and always will. Right now the SE got a scare because they got reported for posts in an unrelated room so they're being especially strict. In time this will ease.
I am aware. But I deem a conversation on that specific "strictness" to be relevant, hence why I and many others (from the moderation team as well) have been talking about the meta-theory behind the policies in here, I imagine.
I agree that it would be nice to have clear and precise rules for what can and can't be discussed, but making such rules is impossible. If you attempted it you'd just just encourage users to game the rules.
One one end, if you chat about physics and maths you're certainly safe. On the other end if you post comments that are sexually explicit or racist you're certainly going to be banned. In between you play it by ear.
Most of us don't seem to have any problem with this. Humans are mostly good at dealing with this sort of uncertainty. But if you find yourself unable to judge where the line is then you're certainly wise not to use the chat room.
I disagree with the adjective "most". A nontrivial proportion of the users in the chat has contrary opinions about the moderation concerning recent events. (see, eg, comments below 0celo7's suspension, or number stars on my messages here in support of my narrative, or number of users who has in fact proposed some contra-narratives)
I don't agree with your summary of what's safe and unsafe, as it leaves the factor of interpretation (done in part by the moderators) unspecified. That's part of the issue.
@BalarkaSen I've been flagged for treading too close to the line, and so have other high rep users like Emilio. In both cases it was an attempt to entertain not an attempt to be offensive. We learn from this and back away a bit.
You don't get a year long suspension with repeated warnings and shorter term suspensions.
If I discuss Ryan's suspension in particular that will take me too close to the unfounded speculation that we've been warned about, and to be fair I'm not a mod and can't see exactly what happened so I would indeed be talking out of my bottom.
How do you know if something is flagged for treading too close to the line, or if it's a flag backed by ill-intention? The moderators deconstruct the reason for the flag. There is no definite way of knowing what's happening.
Every message in the chat is an attempt at entertainment - that's what chat is about. It's not Math.SE or Physics.SE main site.
So I don't see what your point is
@JohnRennie There has been arguments made in this chat by moderators that users get under the moderation radar if they have a big suspension history, which I am not sure if you have seen.
(There has been counterarguments, too, which is a bit confusing)
I interpret it as a bias towards the statement "This user is problematic" if the user has larger suspension history when the moderation judgement happens.
I've been hanging out in the chat room for years. I've probably spent more time in the room than any other user except possibly Sam.
And my view, based not on unfounded speculation but on the evidence of my own eyes, is that suspension history does correlate with repeated offensive behaviour.
I will correct my sentence. There might be a correlation with the suspension history and repeated offense, but repeated offensive behavior is a dependent on many other variables than the size of the suspension history alone, and there is no reason to believe it deserves more attention than any of the other variables. It just happens to be the most convenient one for the moderators, because it's an explicit number.
@JohnRennie You've been in the chat for 6 years. I have been for 5 (admittedly not as a room owner of any of the two rooms we speak of). So that doesn't constitute an argument.
@BalarkaSen I disagree. I have found the number of flaggings is strongly correlated with a user's inability to judge whether their comments will cause offense or not.
Note my careful wording there. My experience is that very few users deliberately set out to cause offence.
@JohnRennie Is that strongly correlated with repeat offense? I mean, just because user X disagrees that their message A is offensive doesn't mean message A is offensive or that user has caused repeated offense or is likely to do it.
@JohnRennie I understand that. I am skeptic about it, and so are many others.
Big with respect to what? He's certainly a peak (and I suspect I'm too, maybe a lower one), but there surely are several hbar users with suspension size much more than the average network-wide? It's unclear if it's otherwise
I'm not a mod (I know, I keep saying that) so I can't see suspension histories. But I spend at least eight hours a day in the chat room and I've read or at least skimmed every chat log for every day since I've been a room owner.
And my impression is that no-one comes even remotely close.
@BalarkaSen There was a period a couple of years ago when hbar users in particular went through a bout of using the (clunky at best) chat flagging system as a way to disrupt what was happening in the room. That makes this history hard to analyze, and it would be hard to summarize such an analysis without disturbing other people's privacy.
@user187604 I'm not really the person to ask because I've only ever learned the bare minimum of maths I needed to do the physics I wanted. Vector calculus isn't that hard, though i'm surprised you need to learn it at your level. It's normally only done in first year at university.
@user187604 if you're fascinated by some bit of maths or physics then that's an excellent reason to study it on your own. And if that's why you want to learn vector calculus then go for it. But if you're just thinking about preparing for uni then I would bother.
@JohnRennie I think I should enroll for kvpy (an exam) which is 5 months later to have more chances cause in iiser aptitude test I don't really find any chances.
@JohnRennie I'm going to have my dinner. Back later.....
@user187604 no, I don't. I did a PhD but that was in 1986. I have no contact with universities these days so I have no first hand knowledge of how they operate in 2018.
@JohnRennie if I have to complete vector calculus and quantum mechanics in one semester (ie 6 months) and appear for academics test then should I rely to YouTube videos?
@JohnRennie if I have to complete vector calculus and quantum mechanics in one semester (ie 6 months) and appear for academics test then should I rely to YouTube videos?
@user187604 generations of students before you will have taken the course and successfully passed the exam at the end of it. The course is designed to make this possible.
You don't need to do any preparatory work - unless you want to.
In fact YouTube videos or MIT lectures may take a different approach to teaching the material, and that might be actively unhelpful.
Backup Room – The h Bar
Backup Room – The h Bar