The Factory Floor

shatterspike1

1:17 AM

Well not endless. It's still beta, people are going debate absolutely everything.

BESW

1:38 AM

I'm already seeing a lot of the MST3K Mantra ethos seeping into policy debates. Sigh.

kprovost7314

2:34 AM

Did anyone see that open world on the new Zelda game?

Liath

7:19 AM

I've got to stay out of that software question or I know I'll start writing specs and starting GitHub projects...

DonyorM

7:34 AM

lol. There seem to be a lot of programmers here

BESW

8:07 AM

Isn't that true of most Stacks?

DonyorM

8:41 AM

I guess so, I've mostly been on Stack Overflow, so I wouldn't know.

Tim B

That would be why :)

Stack Overflow is how a lot of people find Stack Exchange as it is the original and biggest

BESW

From Mystery Science Theatre 3000 theme song:

Tim B

@BESW What's a MST3K Mantra ethos?

BESW

> If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts,
Repeat to yourself "It's just a show,
I should really just relax."

It's also often expressed as "A wizard did it," meaning the attitude that working in a fantasy setting absolves the writer of any need for internal consistency or logic because everything can be justified through handwaves that "it's magical."

I think both attitudes are actively poisonous to the basic assumptions this Stack is founded on.

Tim B

Right, for what it's worth I agree with you

"A wizard did it" can be a valid answer, but it certainly shouldn't be the default answer.

BESW

8:53 AM

In RPG culture there's a concept often called "Rule 0," which is that the gamemaster is the final arbiter of the world and the rules: he can create and abolish mechanics and declare that something happens in the story without needing to justify himself.

Even in game systems where Rule 0 applies (and it is not as widespread a conceit as many think), RPG.SE answers which boil down to "You're the GM, just say it happens" are demonstrably useless.

I think that here, like there, we should work from the assumption that the querent knows they can declare something to be true by pure fiat and is asking us for alternatives.

3

Tim B

Sounds good. You should put that up as a mission statement :)

Liath

@BESW you should see some of the geeky answers we get on Movies!

BESW

@Liath Do tell!

(I occasionally answer questions on scifi.se--usually stuff to do with old Doctor Who--so I've seen a tiny bit of the overlap with movies.se.)

DonyorM

So does anyone else do PBP RPGs?

BESW

I've dabbled in Storium and run quite a few campaigns in RPG.SE chat rooms, but neither is probably what you've got in mind.

I know several of the folks who frequent the RPG.SE main chat do play-by-post RPGs regularly.

DonyorM

9:07 AM

Cool, that's good to know. I haven't done much chat

Generally stuck to the main site

BESW

@DonyorM I... am on that chat so much that I got automagically defaulted to room owner last year.

DonyorM

@BESW Haha, nice

Liath

9:26 AM

@BESW I'm trying to find the one where someone analysed the SQL used Lisbeth Salander's hacking... maybe it was somewhere else now I think about it?

Liath

9:39 AM

Shameless plug - chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/17257/worldbuilding-software did I mention a new project is a bad idea? ;)

Tim B

@DonyorM I do online RPGs, using maptools for actual sessions rather than play by post though.

Mourdos

9:58 AM

The right PBP might draw me in, but I find it unlikely

much prefer the virtual tabletops

BESW

Since my current systems don't use maps-and-minis at all...

Liath

11:54 AM

@Mourdos don't worry about your english - as long as people can understand what you're saying other people can edit and tidy your post. It happens on StackOverflow all the time!

Mourdos

@Liath I'm not sure what that comment was in reference to?

Liath

12:24 PM

@Mourdos I was back reading - maybe it was someone else who wanted to answer something. Never mind - ignore me!

Mourdos

12:36 PM

@Liath That's fine, the sudden and unexpected comment about my English being terrible confused me for a bit. I wondered if there was a confusion over my reason for not liking PBP games :P

Chad

2:09 PM

Am I the only one concerned over the direction this SE has taken this early on? Lots of bad subjective questions and lots of off topic questions.

Vulcronos

2:20 PM

There are some, but when I commited to this site I expected a lot of subjective, speculative questions that would be answered with logic and occosional history/science.

Liath

2:39 PM

@Chad I wouldn't say concerned - there have been a few but the questions are pretty much what I was expecting

After all I think the "How can this happen?" "How could this have occurred" are likely to be the core of WorldBuilding

githubphagocyte

@Vulcronos I agree that subjective questions can be useful as long as we have objective answers.

Chad

3:13 PM

@Liath That is very concerning to me.

githubphagocyte

@Chad I like questions that say "starting from these first principles, what kind of world will emerge?" but if we exclude questions along the lines of what @Liath suggests then we are very unlikely to have enough activity to get to public beta. I think we are going to see a lot of reverse engineering questions. We can answer these with "this could happen given the following initial conditions" or "this is very unlikely to happen so your world will be fantasy for these reasons".

Chad

I do not necessarily mind reverse engineering questions if they are focused. It is more of the I want to do XYZ so how does that play out? Questions that bother me

Take the destroy the dyson sphere question. If that was what is left and how can i exploit that I think it would be on topic and answerable.

2

Q: Settings formed by Uncontrolled Terraforming of Venus and Mars via Portals

If two circular portals of 2 meter (arbitrary) diameter were created allowing uninhibited flow between surface atmospheres of Venus and Mars, what would be the environmental effects on the two planets? My thought process was inspired partially by both xkcd and the games Portal and Portal 2. I ...

for that one If it was this portal has been open long enough now that it has balanced out what does mars look like what does venus look like? That would be on topic I dont think the currect one is.

Liath

4:39 PM

@Chad, I see what you mean - pull a few out into meta to discuss

2

Bobson

5:05 PM

I've started pushing for a brainstorming tag specifically for "This is what I want, how do I get there" questions, and leaving the "this happens, now what?" questions as off-topic.

They're both open-ended, but the latter is just speculation.

The former has a defined goal. I'd say the dyson sphere question is the first kind, and the portals question is the second.

githubphagocyte

5:20 PM

I wouldn't want to exclude magic from the site, but it seems to be almost a default answer. I want people to be able to ask questions about magic, but when I see questions unrelated to magic being answered with "what about magic" I worry about the impression this will give of the site.

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