The Factory Floor - 2014-10-30 (page 3 of 5)

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11:00 AM

A is a start point, B is the end point, X is the process. Z is an aspect common to A and B that is narrow enough in scope for answers to be specific.
a) I have A.z and X, give me B.z (cool wth Z, Too Broad without Z)
b) I have B.z and X, give me A(.z) (cool, A.z normally always implicit)
c) I have X, give me A and B (Too broad, Z is by defintiion undefined) (See hack the universe)
d) I have A(.z) and B(.z), give me X (Too Broad without one of B.z or A.z define. the other (.z) is normally always implicit)

No, I don't like that

I'm happy with a question being a) and d)

@Mourdos Hm, combining question types

@overactor give me an example of an a)+d) question

@Mourdos My everyone else is dead question

A is well defined

B is sort of defined

X is partially implied

A is defined for all aspect of Z. B.z is survive. X is questioned

hmm, I see your point

I guess the risk is the B.z might be to narrow

well, z

11:06 AM

See "Stuff can be too narrow, but often its too broad instead" on meta

We don't tend to worry about narrow

The question was good, and B.z wasn't too narrow

@Mourdos I mean narrow as in, I'm not giving enough information

The only way you could narrow it would be to define survival as "reduce inbreeding" or "first 30 years".

As it was, it was good enough

You even helped define X by providing information about what they had available.

@Mourdos Note that you're broadening B.z

No, I think Z is confusing people.

Z isn't an aspect

Z is a scope limiter

okay, my point is

The bigger Z, the more defined a state is

11:09 AM

Yes.

This isn't an exact science.

If I ask for a state A.z

and Z is big

that's too broad

Then we close it as too broad.

And you narrow Z

Then it will be reopoen

however if I ask for X and supply A.z and B.z

And Z is big

<cut>

that's not too broad

since the answer doesn't need to fill in much information

11:11 AM

Z is not transferable between questions.

Z is just where we apply the scope

Z doesn't specify how much scope is needed

if Z is small however, the question is at risk of being too broad

Basically what I'm saying is:

( every time you say Z is small, I think of Z as narrow )

Be liberal with the information you supply, but be conservative with the information you ask for.

5

Yes.

When you narrow a question, that is what it means

within reasonable limits of course

11:13 AM

Add more information or Ask for less

Can we sticky that from @overactor

@overactor @BESW Can we sticky this

Whoot!

coolio

So to go over this again

We have A, B and X

Only giving one and asking for the two others is likely always bad

Giving A and B and asking X is likely cool

Giving A and X or B and X is okay given that the unknown (A or B) is reasonably scoped

If you supply A and B, one of those (or both) can lack some information

A is a start point, B is the end point, X is the process, X and X.z are the same. Z is scope. Note that just having scope doesn't mean that the scope isn't too large. To narrow Scope: give more information or ask for less, as appropriate.

a) I have A.z and X, give me B.z (cool, *requires* narrow z)
b) I have B.z and X, give me A.z (cool, A.z normally always implicit)
c) I have X, give me A and B (Too broad, Z is by defintiion undefined) (See hack the universe)
d) I have A.z and B.z, give me X (A.z or B.z normally always implicit on the other)

I don't see why c) is even a question type, it's just plain bad.

Hack the Universe. Was reopened

@Mourdos It's not a pure (c) question though

11:23 AM

A is undefined, B is undefined.

A and B are implicitly defined to some degree

" A sandbox universe" is meaningless

There are no rules.

The main reason why it has been reopened is because people reading it are defining A and B as they read.

Yes

Which makes it a bad question

When A and B are undefined, people do it themselves

which makes it impossible to answer the question properly

This is only about the question. "But the answers made up B and A" has no impact on the quality of the question itself

@Mourdos people didn't answer or vote to open the question as it is though

they answer the question as they read it

But I'd argue that that's what the op meant in the first place

people read it right

11:27 AM

As written, the top answer to not answer the question put.

Read my meta post.

> The top voted answer doesn't even answer the question specifically, it describes the process. Asking for what methodology you would use to make an attack seems reasonable, asking for a list that includes almost every set and subset of actions a person could take does not.

Okay here's another thought

(c) questions are impossible

you can write them down

The hacking the universe basically asks "How do you hack the framework" the answer is "depends on how you interact with it". In this case, the framework is the universe

but people will answer them as an (a), (b) or even (d) question

So you can interact with it in any possible way.

Yes

Even the OP has said that nobody has answered it fully yet

here's another (c) question:

"What happens when an asteroid crashes on it?"

11:32 AM

Yes

it is absolutely unanswerable

A is unknown, B is unknown, X is "throw an asteroid at it"

though people will read into it and answer it anyway

No, that would be closed

They'll make A "an earth like planet"

11:33 AM

If it was "What happens when an steroid crashes on earth?" it would be a too Broad a)

a) I have A.z and X, give me B.z (cool, requires narrow z)

A = Current Earth. Z is defined for all A

X = Asteroid (size can be guessed at, though helps if you define)

B.z needs defining

Or you could ask

A = current Earth

When Earth is hit by an asteroid what would be the media's reaction?

B.z is defined

@Mourdos Ahhhh! Ahhh! We're all gonna die!

@DannyReagan We blame immigration!

X = asteroid within size range (m,n) and hits earth

11:36 AM

@Mourdos That doesn't sound at all like my media. :P

B = humanity survives + some stuff

Hehe

Yes, but still too broad

There's an interesting point, there, for that question

"Which media?"

@Mourdos Well, it's not perfect, but that's another approach

Yep

But at that point, the question is answerable (even if it could be improved)

There are degrees of quality. Just because a question isn't "Too Broad" doesn't mean that is can't be too broad.

11:37 AM

The Chinese media would pretend it didn't happen

The Russians would say Putin is smiting the west.

Or that it was an attack from the West

The Americans would say that everything is under control, don't worry

depends on where it lands :P

Japan would turn off its nuclear reactors. xD

@Mourdos Let's say... Watford

I wouldn't care what the media said :-)

11:38 AM

@Mourdos Not anymore you wouldn't

Nor would TimB

If it was big enough, we'd lose a lot of community members

Hehe

Most of the active backbone right now is European

If it hit the SE servers, we would technically loose all the members.

11:40 AM

Where are those?

No idea.

Possibly distributed.

cool, outspoken badge

So we need a cluster strike

Heh

Offices for SE seem to be in New York, Denver, San Fran, and London

That's at least all in the same hemisphere

So it should be doable without staggering the impacts to account for time

11:42 AM

" What is the smallest number of asteroids that we need to take out the SE servers?" Asteroids are limited to a size and speed that will destroy a regular office building. Humanity must not be majorly impacted.

Well, I guess it would be at least 4

I'm really tempted to ask that.

Hard to score those sites as multikills without just popping the planet

Dooo eeeet

Reference for office locations: stackexchange.com/work-here

Ah, that is the office locations.

I'll say that they can assume that the office locations are the server locations.

@Mourdos That's quite an assumption

11:44 AM

That is why I am specifying it

so that it can be assumed

Unfortunately, they are not hiring any hardware techs. That would be the best indicator of where the servers are

We have a lot of weird questions come up [in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/17213/worldbuilders-general-chat) and fun comments about how we destroy worlds over a lunch break. Here is one that though I might share. You are a power that can affect comic bodies and phenomena. You have been offended mightily by some questions on SE and wish to blow up their servers.

**How would you take out the SE Servers while causing minimal casualties and disruption to humanity?**

- Humanity must be impacted as little as possible by the strikes (other than great loss of SE).

heh

Workable?

Here's a fun game: go over to someone's profile, look at the titles of the questions they've asked, make up a story that involves all of those questions.

Michael Kjörling

11:54 AM

@overactor Stack Overflow or Worldbuilding? :)

@MichaelKjörling Worldbuilding ^^

@Mourdos Needs some more definition as to what you can do

Michael Kjörling

Did you manage to come up with decent types of questions earlier? (I have a few minutes before that meeting.)

You are a power that can affect comic bodies and phenomena.

Current science must be aware of any principles you use.

0

Q: Precision Destruction by a Cosmic Being

We have a lot of weird questions come up in chat and fun comments about how we destroy worlds over a lunch break. Here is one that though I might share. You are a power that can affect comic bodies and phenomena. You have been offended mightily by some questions on SE and wish to blow up their se...

To what extent can I affect cosmic bodies?

Any

11:57 AM

Can I supply them with near infinite energy?

You can affect anything you like, but you can't 'undo' a change.

Remember, smallest impact on humnaity

@Mourdos It's "cosmic" bodies not "comic"

Then I'd take a bunch of high energy photons and shoot those at the servers

concentrated enough to hit nothing but the servers themselves

and high energy enough to fry the servers

high precision solar wind

@overactor [takes notes for upcoming ARRPG adventure]

Unstable micro black hole is TimB's answer

12:14 PM

Right, I've closed the hacking the universe question again - I've also posted saying what he needs to do to fix it, hopefully they're fairly small changes as he already fixed it a lot

I suspect it is basically reword "attack vector"

12:40 PM

There you go @MichaelKjörling - an answer for you

Michael Kjörling

12:56 PM

@TimB Great! Looks good at a glance, I'll have to let it sink in and ponder it more later, perhaps tonight. Thanks.

(And alternate answers are never a bad thing. ;))

1:21 PM

I like that the current most popular suggestion for taking out SE servers is "Ask Programming Golf to do it"

@overactor 1 upvote, 4 answers :-)

Michael Kjörling

I just updated the help center "on-topic" article suggested text. I'd appreciate if people take a look; if no one objects until then, I think replacing the current article text tonight-ish might be reasonable.

9

A: Create Custom Help Center Articles

NOTE: This answer is for the "What Questions Can I Ask Here?" section of the help center. All text from this line on is intended for the article. Worldbuilding Stack Exchange is a site for developers, designers, writers and artists to get help creating imaginary worlds. This includes geography...

Specific effects of events or world elements, including technology and magic, on that world's society, cultures, and environment to Effects of events or world elements, including technology and magic, on specific aspects of that world's society, cultures, and environment

Why does my bold not work... sandess

Michael Kjörling

Double asterisks ** is why @Mourdos ;)

Nope, newline
**stops**
it working

no newline here

Michael Kjörling

Hm. Good point. It's CW, you go ahead. ;)

@Mourdos Point.

1:28 PM

the word specific is used far too much

Michael Kjörling

What, you don't want us to be specific? ;)

The more you use a world, the less it means.

Michael Kjörling

I guess it has evolved that way. On the other hand, nobody has objected enough to edit it out... ;)

I have and just did

Shall we go back to our question premise meta thing?

Michael Kjörling

I need to get some work done as well. ;)

But go ahead, I won't sue you. :)

1:32 PM

Fair enough. The bigges thing I found was that Z is not aspect

Michael Kjörling

So what was the latest that you decided on after I left?

To be honest, I'm tempted to throw away Z and .z

New:

A is a start point, B is the end point. X is the process. Note that just having scope doesn't mean that the scope isn't too large. To narrow scope give more information or ask for less, as appropriate.

a) I have A and X, give me B (*requires* narrow scope on B)
b) I have B and X, give me A (scope is normally always implied by describing the outcome)
c) I have X, give me A and B (Always Too broad, scope is by defintion undefined) (See hack the universe pre edits)
d) I have A and B, give me X (requies some kind of scope (often on X) and is normally always implicit on the other)

@Vincent Yo

Michael Kjörling

Make "X is the process" instead "X is the process or change".

Can you delete my previous posting of the a/b/c? Clutters chat :P

Michael Kjörling

Allows for questions that start out like "assume our world EXCEPT for Factor G, then..."

githubphagocyte

1:39 PM

Is this algorithmic approach sufficiently refined to start releasing question asking bots?

A is a start point, B is the end point. X is the process or change. Note that just having scope doesn't mean that the scope isn't too large. To narrow scope give more information or ask for less, as appropriate.

a) I have A and X, give me B (*requires* narrow scope on B)
b) I have B and X, give me A (scope is normally always implied by describing the outcome)
c) I have X, give me A and B (Always Too broad, scope is by defintion undefined) (See hack the universe pre edits)
d) I have A and B, give me X (requires some kind of scope (often on X) and is normally always implicit on the other)

@githubphagocyte Yo. Not at all.

githubphagocyte

@Mourdos I know - I was joking :)

It started out as my trying to explain why I didn't like the Hacking the Universe Question, and turned into a definition of question types.

@githubphagocyte xkcd.com/810

Michael Kjörling

@Mourdos That definition of question types does however seem to cover most cases, and it allows discussion about what we want to do with each. :)

Yep

@Vincent @githubphagocyte Any thoughts on it?

Michael Kjörling

1:42 PM

I feel that maybe those are well-baked enough to be turned into a set of four meta posts, one for each, asking "how do we want to handle this particular type of question". If we can reach some sort of consensus there those would also do well as documentation of site policy.

The posts would ideally all be cross-linked so one can navigate from one to the other. :)

Okay

githubphagocyte

I think that short words instead of letters would make this more readable for people who don't easily associate letters with meaning. For example:
a) I have START and PROCESS, give me END

Lets assume for now we are talking about the base model, rather than its readability :P

Michael Kjörling

@githubphagocyte Absolutely, that was the idea all along. A B X Z was just to save on typing here in chat.

I'm going to write it in MathJax :-)

X(A) = B

githubphagocyte

1:43 PM

@MichaelKjörling Ah OK - I'm coming into this half way...

XfB = A

Michael Kjörling

Do it however you want @Mourdos, but please be consistent :)

X = AB

AB = X

githubphagocyte

@Mourdos In that case you should use greek letters too :-P

Michael Kjörling

And only one type per meta post so we can discuss them properly.

1:44 PM

I was going to throw them all into one, but bleh

4 posts it is

githubphagocyte

Separate posts for fine grained voting is always good

Michael Kjörling

All in one wouldn't allow discussing the merits of each.

Haha, looks like @githubphagocyte beat me to saying it :)

CW answer

for each?

Michael Kjörling

I don't think so.

githubphagocyte

:)

Michael Kjörling

1:46 PM

CW answers is for when you want to reduce the barrier to editing. Which is good for trying to find phrasings and such, but not for finding out what we want to do with each type of question.

CW might be good for discussing possible site-specific close reasons later, though.

Emphasis later.

Let's start off with deciding what we want to do with each type of question (allow, allow with restrictions, close with extreme prejudice...)

githubphagocyte

I like this meta approach to meta

what is b?

Michael Kjörling

"B" is the end result.

"A" is where you start out, "X" is how you change it, "B" is what you end up with after applying the change.

@githubphagocyte That is too meta for most.

>.>

a) Handeling "What happens if I do this?" ( I have START and CHANGE, give me RESULT )
b) Handeling "?" ( I have RESULT and CHANGE, give me START )
c) Handeling "I did something, what changes where?" ( I have CHANGE, give me START and RESULT )
d) Handeling "How did I get here?" ( I have RESULT and CHANGE, give me CHANGE )

What is b)?

What could cause?

githubphagocyte

1:51 PM

b) What environment/conditions would lead to a process giving result?

Michael Kjörling

@githubphagocyte That.

I think should be b) is I have B and maybe X, give me maybe X and A

I need to find examples

githubphagocyte

I think we've had a few of those already so there are probably much better example wordings already out there

Michael Kjörling

@Mourdos No, (b) is you have B (outcome) and X (what caused it), find A (where did it start).

githubphagocyte

How about we call them (1), (2), (3), (4) to avoid the confusion?

1:52 PM

b) Where did I come from? a) Where did I go? d) What did I do here? c) Cotton Eye Joe?

Michael Kjörling

@Mourdos d) I have START and RESULT, give me CHANGE

@Mourdos Where do you want to go today?

Where do I want to go today?

a) Handeling "What happens if I do this?" ( I have START and CHANGE, give me RESULT )
b) Handeling "What did I come from?" ( I have RESULT and CHANGE, give me START )
c) Handeling "What the hell am I asking?" ( I have CHANGE, give me START and RESULT )
d) Handeling "What did I do?" ( I have START and RESULT, give me CHANGE )

githubphagocyte

I'm not sure if reality-check fits into this list

It is

Start: Animals, Change: Make them big. What is the result: living or dead animals?

Its close enough to a varient on a)

Result can be a yes this works :-)

githubphagocyte

So CHANGE can be a change from reality, rather than a change that occurs in-world?

1:56 PM

yes

Thing of A and B as what you started with and what you ended with

X is what you did to transition or cause the transition, can be anything

I kind of want to keep "what the hell am I asking", but it should probably Oops, I did something?

githubphagocyte

So sometimes X will be the developmental process that actually happens over time within your created universe, but other times X will be a difference between our universe and your created universe?

Yes

githubphagocyte

I think it's probably important to clarify both meanings in the post.

@Mourdos "What am I asking?" still works

a) Handeling "What happens if I do this?" ( I have START and CHANGE, give me RESULT )
b) Handeling "Where did I come from?" ( I have RESULT and CHANGE, give me START )
c) Handeling "What am I asking?" ( I have CHANGE, give me START and RESULT )
d) Handeling "What would cause this?" ( I have START and RESULT, give me CHANGE )

I don't like b)

I need some examples, I suspect they are rare

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