The Sphinx's Lair

« first day (474 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3465 days later) »

f''

02:07

puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/… is this a meta-tag?

Doorknob

@f'' Probably. I don't like it, in any case.

Tryth

02:25

@f'' I came into the chat to ask the same thing; It doesn't seem like a useful tag to me because it describes the context of the question not the content

3 hours later…

pacoverflow

05:29

@Emrakul It seems like there are still questions regarding the spam policy. Now you say that you will be clarifying it, which suggests that the current policy is unclear. Maybe it's just me, but it does seem like banning someone for a year for violating an unclear policy is a little bit unfair.

Puzzling Meta

Q: Do puzzles need to be original?

I'm new to this site and really like it so far. I've read all the help documents and am unclear on whether puzzles need to be original in order to be posted. All the original content on this site is extremely impressive and I think it will be a while until I can create questions as polished as th...

support

2 hours later…

CodeNewbie

07:14

@Emrakul: So just to be clear, rand's suspension is final and irrevocable, right?

4 hours later…

A E

11:10

New tag is about context, I've added a qn to address that explicitly:

Q: Are puzzles an effective part of the recruitment process?

Many companies - particularly in the tech sector - use puzzles of various kinds (including riddles, lateral-thinking questions, and guesstimation questions) in job interviews for potential new recruits. (Some of these puzzles end up here on puzzling.SE). To what extent is this practice effectiv...

job-interview-question

1 hour later…

Tryth

12:17

@AE You seem to be trying to have it both ways - the question you linked talks about puzzles being used as part of an interview, whilst some other questions you tagged are interview puzzles themselves. Whilst I can see some use for a tag for the former, having a tag to say 'hey, this was used in an interview' doesn't seem useful to me. Any puzzle can be used in an interview - the division of puzzles based on whether someone encountered them during an interview or not seems rather arbitrary.

5 hours later…

Puzzling Meta

17:31

Q: What to do when a duplicate is better than the original?

I thought I remembered a similar discussion to this earlier, but can't find it now. If this is a duplicate, please let me know. The community is pretty on top of things when it comes to flagging duplicates, which is good. But sometimes you might have someone who puts a lot of thought and ene...

discussion question-quality flagging duplicates

user61230

18:23

@pacoverflow Sorry about the delay. We were pretty explicit before suspending. It's some stuff that came up afterward and was poorly-timed with this that's causing a some apprehension/confusion.

user61230

The lack of clarity comes from the interplay between the spam policy and plagiarism policy, not from the spam policy itself. Separately, they're unambiguous; together, a weird edge case arises.

user61230

It also comes from the fact that from the outside, this looks a little confusing w.r.t. spam/plagiarism. It's still relatively internally consistent, though.

Aggie Kidd

@Emrakul From the outside, it does appear that this instance is in that "weird edge case" area though.

user61230

Nah, there was no question of attribution for the content of that post. The author of X can post X elsewhere without needing to attribute it to themselves.

Aggie Kidd

18:40

@Emrakul Rand had said at one point that he didn't write the post, that someone else did. That was what made me want to ask my meta question for some clarification.

user61230

In that case, the original question never contained attribution to the author anyway.

Aggie Kidd

@Emrakul Just for my own clarrification then, how would I need to site a riddle I found on an outside site if it doesn't state who the author is?

user61230

If it's original content of the outside site, saying where it came from is fine.

user61230

If it's not original content (e.g. it's a chestnut puzzle), then I don't see a pressing need to attribute it.

Aggie Kidd

@Emrakul I recognize that Rand being associated with the outside site throws a difficult twist into the mix, but isn't that what he did in this circumstance? I know Rand has never "toed the line," but I can understand his argument for wanting to attribute the riddle (if it is original and he didn't write it).

A E

18:59

@Tryth Yeah, well maybe you're right.

user61230

@AggieKidd Truth be told, the issue of ownership with content policies is tricky, and isn't one I'm qualified to answer on behalf of Stack Exchange. Also, this treads pretty close to details on the suspension itself, so I apologize for being a little more guarded in answering specifics here.

user61230

The two major issues are: who owns the content?, and when is attribution necessary?

user61230

As a moderator, I've made a binding agreement that I can't act as a legal agent of Stack Exchange. Besides, operating on a legal basis of ownership isn't really in the spirit of what's going on. To me, "you were part of the group that made and published it" is sufficient to satisfy the spirit of content ownership.

user61230

To answer "when is attribution necessary?," again it's necessary to return to the point of the plagiarism policy. We're not fulfilling a legal obligation, just an obligation to give credit where credit is due.

Bailey M

20:55

@Emrakul was there more to the ban than just "rand posted a link to his own website"?

(silly question, obviously, but bear with me)

user61230

I wish I knew where this was going... :P

Puzzling Meta

Q: Puzzles for a small "magazine"

My parents and I have been solving puzzles together for many, many years. This upcoming Monday is my father's birthday, and I plan on compiling some of the puzzles that I've contributed here into a small "magazine" for my parents to solve in their free time. I would love to use some puzzles from...