The Factory Floor

@doppelgreener It's hardly abour WORLD building though, is it?

seems more like a minor(ish) plot device

it also seems way too mundane

I voted to close

9:44 AM

yeah close voted

@TimB about your answer about using light as communication

2 more upvotes and ragnarok catches up with drugged population for most upvoted answer by me :)

I can imagine that these creatures' entire skin would be slightly light sensitive

maybe especially so for a very specific wavelength

which could be used as an attention grabber

or just a bright flash of light

@TimB do you feel dirty yet?

@TimB also possible

ofcourse a flash of bright light could come from many sources

9:49 AM

I just got -10 rep due to "User Removed". Who managed to get their account deleted?

dunno, I had a -30 on that this morning

I also lots 30 due to serial upvoting

sadness

@Mourdos Someone likes you :)

And finally. My question has more answers than upvotes :-(

btw

@ivy_lynx @Liath congratz on reaching 3k rep

9:53 AM

The stats on the area51 are now being rated!

@ivy_lynx @Liath My congratulations as well.

@Mourdos I saw

they're looking good

@Mourdos Which question?

Western Marches

I take that back

11 vs 8 answers. Yay

their estimates on area 51 seem a bit out

I'm sure they are based on something.

we should be on 9 with 3k+ by 60 days, let alone 90

10:01 AM

Did you just look at everyone with 1.5k rep?

xD

yep :)

I expect they take into account slowdown.

yeah, some people will slow down, but others will speed up

Well, we don't really care about the estimates anyway

I'd like to see some movement on the pro tem mod thing

2

10:04 AM

I say the estimate of 2nd week of public beta

we're past that now, aren't we?

also

yep

Q: Are questions about (minor) plot points in mundane settings on-topic?

0

There is a question on main which asks how long a scent can remain tracable. I personally feel like this question is off-topic since there seems to be no reason why this question couldn't refer to a mundane, real life scenario. There is nothing for us to add that chemistry.SE couldn't do better. ...

discussion on-topic

made ameta post about the scent question

for good measure

public beta started 17 days ago

private beta 30 days ago

maybe not everyone is on the same page on this one

Q: Are questions about (minor) plot points in mundane settings on-topic?

2

There is a question on main which asks how long a scent can remain tracable. I personally feel like this question is off-topic since there seems to be no reason why this question couldn't refer to a mundane, real life scenario. There is nothing for us to add that chemistry.SE couldn't do better. ...

discussion on-topic

10:09 AM

replied

@TimB I made a small edit to the question, check it out

you may be able to touch upon that too in your answer

I ask if teh question could be rewritten

doppelgreener

@overactor yes it isn't

but i think part of world building IS in the details

Same.

added a bit more to the reply

and upvoted Mourdos' reply

It would probably be fair to alert the asker of the meta post

I'll do so

10:41 AM

I just came across this

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/vampire

yeah...

?

vampire, who knew that meta tag existed :P

I did :p

help vampire is the full term

people whine about them a lot on stack overflow

10:59 AM

morning builders

Morning

o/

ugh

another person who doesn't spell check

I'm gonna start downvoting :p

u downvote me ? but why?

overactor in this case

just had to fix loads of errors in his answer

had to do the same for Mourdos yesterday

spell checkers people....

even when i spellcheck my stuff sometimes the spellchecker lets some errors trough

XD my stuff... i postet nothing since 2 weeks

11:11 AM

slacker :p

there been some interesting questions, you should get in there

no time... working, office stuff...

I've been trying to hold back actually, give other people time to answer before I do and answering fewer

Q: Downvoting misspelt answers

0

Now, I don't questions where someone misspelt a word or two. As someone with dyslexics I know how easy it to spell something incorrectly. Hell, we all make mistakes from time to time. My problem is that we seem to have a lot of people who don't even use a spell checker to check their work before ...

discussion down-votes low-quality

Your post was one of them Mourdos :p

Yep. I'm guilty of it on occasion. I think I'm going to compeltly reword that.

Its not about downvoting

11:20 AM

@TimB Do you use an external programm to do spell checking or does your browser do it for you?

I do suppose I should start writing up my posts in word..

Q: Downvoting misspelt questions and answers

0

Now, I don't questions where someone misspelt a word or two. As someone with dyslexics I know how easy it to spell something incorrectly. Hell, we all make mistakes from time to time. My problem is that we seem to have a lot of people who don't even use a spell checker to check their work before ...

discussion down-votes low-quality

@DannyReagan Morning/Afternoon

@Mourdos Morning, actually

@overactor Chrome spell-checks me as I go. Helps a lot

^

I do exactly the same.

Its not perfect, but it finds most things.

Chrome spellchecks in german for me

11:30 AM

You can change your dictionary language from the right click menu.

@overactor That must have interesting results when typing English

@DannyReagan mostly, everything is underlined

I removed the entire part about downvoting. It feels wrong and won't fix the issue

Well, I kept the part saying why it wouldn't work

@Mourdos oh god

yes

this makes such a huge difference.

@overactor I use Chrome, it has a built in spell checker

11:44 AM

I do too now :D

@TimB feature-request built in site spellchecker?

lol

no need when most browsers have one built in

@Mourdos This seems reasonable

@Mourdos Maybe it should grade your question and not let you post it if it's a given percent misspelled

Over 50% seems a tolerable level

No, that is overly complicated. I just want the tools to be there for people

over 50% of what?

Oevr fiftey precent of wrods in the sentance incorect?

2

Inconeivable insanity.

@Mourdos That's one for the sidebar, right there.

11:55 AM

he needed to get of, in and the too....

Oevr fiftey precent off wrods im teh sentance incorect?

@TimB I actually meant 50% in the entire post

technical terms often fall foul of spell checkers though

browser spell checkers should suffice

@TimB Quite true. I don't really think my suggestion would help

12:12 PM

I think @MonicaCellio might be the best person to chase up on the pro tem mods stuff, since she's already a moderator on other sites so presumably has access to relevantly knowledgeable people

@TimB good point

Which brings up the question

Who is the best person to chase down @MonicaCellio?

12:28 PM

The @MonicaCellio call :-)

Drop a comment on one of their posts.

she'll get a notification when she logs on anyway from being tagged here

Only if she has been in here recently enough

12:46 PM

The Human Sacrifice question remains in the HNQ. Impressive

@Mourdos exactly

Would this make a good topic for a question:

"Is it in any way plausible that we are part of a living creature that is at least the size of the observable universe?"

?

well

"plausible"

No.

not really

What are you trying to ask?

go ask that one in philosophy :p

12:52 PM

^

the question is, is there proof that we aren't.

I'm not necessarily interested in the philosophical side of it.

@Mourdos you called? :-)

(I'm not always in the room, but I do try to skim the transcript -- but sometimes there's a lot and I miss stuff.)

I think lots of people called.

@TimB

I called

@TimB I've asked in the SE-wide mod room a few times and so far gotten crickets. Most recent was Wednesday afternoon, when I dropped a link to the human-sacrifice question (when it was still pretty young) and said I could imagine stuff happening there that would get flagged -- so could somebody mind the flags? I don't know if flags happened and, if so, if they were handled.

12:57 PM

yeah, I tried poking grace note in one of his/her posts yesterday and got nothing there either. That was only yesterday though

I'll ask again. One problem is that we don't know who specifically is the liaison for our site, so I can either ask the room in general (what I've done so far) or start calling out individual CMs who might or might not be the right ones. I guess it's time to try the latter.

@TimB ah, thank you -- I knew I'd seen another recent ping somewhere, but I didn't find it in that room. It was on mea.

yeah, Grace Note is the one who replied on the "how's the beta going" question so seemed like a good person

Sigh - slim picking among CMs in that room at the moment. The ones who are showing as present are almost certainly sleeping. I'll try again in an hour.

yeah, no rush

be nice to get it sorted though

Well not a rush, but we're well past when we should have had mods, and we've got enough traffic that we really need some.

1:02 PM

closing posts is starting to go at a decent rate though

Even if they haven't decided who all three are, if they could at least appoint one that would make a difference. But we've got several good (and apparently willing) candidates, so I hope they can find three acceptable ones. (Also, they might pick people who haven't been nominated. I wouldn't be surprised by @githubphagocyte, for instance.)

@overactor yes, people are using their close votes -- and I hope also their reopen votes, when posts get fixed.

Indeed. Tim, youself, github, michael and ivy all seem decent choices

Oh, an aside -- I saw some discussion of the Area 51 stats today, and also a couple days ago when I couldn't easily hop in here. Those thresholds are widely held to be bogus; just meeting those numbers will not qualify a site for graduation. Also, no matter how great a site is, on average sites stay in beta for about two years. Don't stress about the numbers; we're making an awesome site here, and we should all be here for the long haul.

yeah, I know - it's just nice to see all indicators green :D

I ~~like~~ love stats

1:06 PM

@MonicaCellio Wow, that seems like a long turnover time. That must be why it feels like there are so many new SE's all the time

@MonicaCellio I have a question though

public beta isn't really very different from live tbh

What's with the "on pace for x users at 90 days"?

@TimB yeah - the privilege thresholds are lower and we don't get a nice design, but other than that it functions the same. (Oh, and appointed vs. elected mods.)

@overactor that shows up when a site is between 30 and 90 days old. Remember how I said the A51 stuff is kinda broken? Once upon a time it was apparently reasonable for a site to graduate in three months, so they put that "predictive" stuff in.

It's also wrong sometimes; I forget where, but I saw an "on track for N" when there were already more than N.

@MonicaCellio betas also don't have custom ads on it.

@MonicaCellio it's saying well have 7 2k+ users at 90 days

Q: Let's set better expectations for how long beta lasts

1:09 PM

50

Back when the idea of beta sites was young, the expectation was that beta was a fairly quick process. Even now, Area 51 sets the expectation that 90 days is a good "start thinking about graduation" checkpoint, and today I got this in email for a new private beta: Q: How long is the beta? A...

feature-request beta-sites graduating-sites

2

we have 15 1k+ users after 30 days though

Broadly speaking, this seems like a good idea. The sites that have graduated since Jan. 1, 2012 spent 17, 13, 20, 12, 6, 19, 21, 22, 42, 39, 26 and 26 months in beta. Music and Chemistry, the two sites most recently approved for graduation, spent about 40 and 30 months in beta, respectively. On average, that's almost two years per site. What specific changes are you proposing here? Copy changes to A51 pages and e-mails, and what (if anything) else? — Pops ♦ Sep 24 at 20:43

@overactor yeah, I don't know how they calculate those. Wonky.

I felt like the ones taking over 2 years were a rarity

how often has a public beta been stopped?

@overactor It would seem not

I know quite a few sites never made it from private to public

1:14 PM

@TimB That makes sense

I also know a few public betas seem to be stuck in perpetual beta

Well, some of them have terrible stats after ages :P

Public betas do get shut down at times, but it seems to be pretty rare. There was a batch of about half a dozen that they shut down about 2 years ago and there was a blog post about it; I had the impression that this was a policy change, hence the blog post. Usually they don't get announced broadly, though "affiliate" sites will get told in case there are questions that can be migrated.

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/49551/reverse-engineering :-)

There have been some since then; I think there was a previous iteration of Startups, for example, and there was a Theoretical CS I think.

78

Startups – startups.stackexchange.com

Beta Q&A site for entrepreneurs faced with delivering a new product or service under conditions of significant uncertainty.

Currently in public beta.

Board and Card Games – boardgames.stackexchange.com

1:21 PM

The OLDEST beta

1458

Beta Q&A site for people who like playing board games, designing board games or modifying the rules of existing board games. Card games, too, because some games really can be classified as both.

Currently in public beta.

the current iteration of startups is not looking too great either

But there are some sites that linger in beta even though they're not growing and you'd think they'd be shut down, yet they aren't. Sometimes it's probably because one of the decision-makers has a personal attachment; sometimes it's probably "well, let's give them more time anyway just in case".

Almost 4 years :-)

@overactor yes, that's the reboot.

Sometimes "its a site with high traffic but not many questions"

1:23 PM

@Mourdos the funny thing is that I thought Board Games was on the list for graduation more than a year ago.

It mostly seems to be those left

There's also a long queue for design, which is a prerequisite for graduation. Music and Chemistry just got told they're graduating, but it might be a half a year or more before they do.

@MonicaCellio Does the community helping out with a design help at all there?

or is that a ridiculous idea?

I think it said pro tem mods help with that

under the pro tem mod info

so I guess they are expected to talk to and represent the community on that front

@overactor no, though I think I saw a suggestion for that on MSE recently. SE has professional designers -- just not nearly enough. And sites are backing up and this is starting to get discussed in public more and more, so it's possible that they'll change how they do things, but it's hard to tell. (I don't have any more info there than you do.)

1:26 PM

@MonicaCellio If you define misinformation as negative information, then I'm sure you have more information than I do.

@TimB I think that's more about helping the designer understand what's really important about a site, what would be cliche or otherwise problematic, and that sort of thing. Not passing images and CSS around.

@overactor ok that's fair. :-)

What I meant is that mods don't get told any more about the inner workings of design and graduation than anybody else.

Can a professional designer contact stack exchange and offer to design a site that's up for graduation?

lol

I really doubt Monica can answer that :p

I don't know. I mean, a designer can certainly offer, but I don't know what the response would be. Consider that Stack Exchange is a business, so this is sort of like taking on a short-term contractor -- some companies do that and some don't, and some jobs are more amenable to that than others.

and they would still need to approve the designs review them, fit them into the overall SE ethos etc....so there wouldn't be as much saving as you expect

1:32 PM

But hey, there's Meta.SE and also the "contact us" link on every page, so go ahead and ask. :-)

good points

I'm not a professional designer though

@TimB yeah, it's kind of like hiring a contractor to implement some new feature in your codebase. If it's a standalone thing that's easier than if it's tightly integrated with everything else.

exactly

I do have photoshop, does that make me a professional?

did you pay for it? :p

Ragnorok has caught up with drugging everyone for most upvotes

hmm, I wonder what the most upvoted answers on the site are

1:34 PM

@TimB touché

@TimB I'll venture a guess here

yours?

Dunno, I have two at +33

then two at +27

hmm, 11 answers have >25

as Good Answer has been awarded that many

4 of those are yours

Vulcronos

My highest is + 30

Vulcronos has a 30 vote one

A: Can a river be put under enough pressure to jet straight up for a mile?

Neil Slater has 31, Guildbounty beats me with 34 though

techzen is one behind on 32

34

Here is a bit of math showing what you are up against. we are ignoring wind resistance. If we want to see how fast that water has to be moving to reach 1 mile in height, we pull out the following equation... SQRT(-2ad+finalV) = initialV Plug in the values for acceleration of gravity, final ve...

1:41 PM

@TimB It's not unlikely that ragnarok will get you ahead a bit more

the question is still in the hnq

we'll see

Guildbounty had maths in his so deserves it really

I just threw in Ragnorok for a bit of fun

@TimB I justed mathjacked his answer

darnit, I missed a formula

Maybe you should do that one quickly

no point in the edit going through review again

I hit approve on the review queue

didn't see a missing one or did you already do it?

@TimB guildbounty approved the first one himself

which explains why it went so quickly

2:03 PM

0

Q: 'More Ideas' questions

I have a question brewing in my head, and already written up, and I wanted to check and see if it would seem appropriate here. I know that a question like this would not be appropriate over on Stack Overflow or any of the other programming-based question sites because there isn't a single 'right'...

discussion questions

@Feeds1352 This is an interesting question... Kind of seems like an instance of "What are some of the effects of..."

answered

Q: 'Magic Came Back' catastrophes

2:34 PM

0

Warning in advance: There's a fair bit of set up for this question... I am constructing a world based off the modern one, where magic has returned after an exceedingly long time. Unfortunately, the return was abrupt and violent, and wrought catastrophic damage across the world. The reason behind...

magic natural-disaster

Is this too broad as it is?

I think so

which is a shame since he asked in meta first :P

@TimB What he said in meta isn't the issue though

0

A: 'More Ideas' questions

Now I can see the actual question this refers to ('Magic Came Back' catastrophes) I can see two problems with what you are asking here. The first is the scope, you're asking for a huge number of ideas over a huge range of scenarios. For a good question people should be able to give one definitiv...

The question could probably be reworded and cut out almost everything before "he elements are running rampant;"

2:55 PM

@Feeds1352 This is a cool question. I think it can be broken down into the following parts. 1. Given source X (where the magic reappears) and given that each element has an affinity for X, Y, Z how would it spread around the globe?

2/3/4/5/6. What would happen when X lines interacted with the other elements

@James The problem there is that you discuss every overlap twice

@overactor Those two are in relation to this btw

I don't see that as an inherent problem since they are part of separate questions.

as long as they are consistent

@James With the last question, everything he'd be asking would already have been discussed

@TimB @James My comment on that answer explains why 3 questions for interactions should be plenty

Can we star up some of the comments by Monica?

I might ask BESW to sticky the link to realistic beta expectations

I kind of get this feeling that when you ask questions like guildsbounty is doing, you should ask one, and then wait for some answers, then as another.

My instinctual reaction to seeing five question with practically the same name all on the front screen next to each other with 0 answers and 0 votes is to assume the person is either spamming or trying to vote whore, even when I know the reason.

3:48 PM

hmm, I think splitting it was the wrong approach....

oh well

4:05 PM

@TimB Yeah it just kinda looks like a mess now...

Q: Worldbuilding vesrus Writers?

0

Long story short: What is difference between this site and Writers? Because if I make list like this: Build a fictional world Such world does not to be scientifically accurate (magic, aliens...) (Hopefully) lets use such world as a plot device or ... well the world where the story takes place ...

discussion asking-questions

4:36 PM

I've been trying to put my finger on why splitting it is wrong, and I just did - I'll do another reply on the meta question

0

A: 'More Ideas' questions

I've been thinking about this some more and want to say why I think that splitting this particular question was a bad idea. The problem is that none of the new questions are actually different. They're just "pick element X ask the same question". My map-making questions that I split had logical...

Does that make sense?

Vulcronos

I think so

@TimB I think it does...Really we shouldnt be defining what happens at the particular sites of interaction unless the answer requested is physical in nature. If its other than that in my mind it becomes a plot point.

@James I think the asker was looking for things that might have happened in the past of his world, rather than plot things that would happen in the present. He's asking how these events (of which he has a great many, to be true) would shape the world he's building a story in.

4:54 PM

Right but plot = story, past or present is irrelevant imo. I think this is a fine line but I think we are getting a little past it on this part of the question.

5:35 PM

I pinged a CM who relayed the ping to the person responsible for picking our mods (whose identity was not revealed to me).

Vulcronos

Cool

@MonicaCellio I feel like we just dealt with an underground network somehow

@DannyReagan ha, yeah. Just as I can't leak specifics from Teacher's Lounge, the CM I talked to probably can't leak specifics from their internal channels. :-)

@MonicaCellio Well as long as all these wheels get us moderators appointed, I am content

thanks @MonicaCellio :)

5:51 PM

@DannyReagan technically, I wasn't actually promised that -- but I sure hope so! Things must be very busy in CM-land for us to have gone this long. With 130+ sites, I imagine there's always something urgently blowing up somewhere.

8:15 PM

@MonicaCellio (Very likely) said CM has pinged.

So maybe with a bit of luck, it won't be long now before we actually have pro tem mods appointed.

Worldbuilding Meta

9:21 PM

0

Q: Why no "big-list" tag?

This site seems ideally suited for a "big-list" tag. I am therefore surprised not to fine one. Examples of big-list type questions would be : What are the issues with faster than light travel and how might they be overcome? What are the issues with time-travel and how might they be overcome? ...

feature-request

9:35 PM

@MichaelKjörling yes, I agree. So maybe a few more days? (CMs don't automatically work weekends...)

@MonicaCellio The wording of the email I received certainly points toward a few days, but of course it won't be official until it's on Meta.

Gilles

Usually, if these things drag on, it's because one of the people that SE contacted was slow in replying, or they had a cascade of nos

9:50 PM

@Gilles Well, I would imagine that you are familiar with the process by now ;)

@Gilles I can't tell if they only have three messages out at a time or if they contact everybody, get responses, and then decide. The standard email for this talks about considering candidates; it doesn't make outright offers.

Or so I understand from very little data, anyway.

(I was a "mid-term replacement" on Writers and in that case I got a direct "we'd like to offer you this job" message, but they only had one slot to fill.)

Gilles

@MonicaCellio their standard email does say “I can't promise you anything this early on”, but I'm pretty sure they try to avoid sending it if they aren't planning to follow through

I think they send the initial email to 3 people and then it's one by one

@Gilles ah, ok. I was wondering about the possibility of contacting half a dozen people, reviewing the responses, and then choosing three.

@MonicaCellio Of course, in our case, we have only three people who have both either self-nominated or were nominated and accepted that nomination, who received a reasonable number of upvotes on those nominations.

@MichaelKjörling but there are other factors besides the voting on meta. Remember that they might well be considering people who weren't even nominated. They want to balance the team in various ways.

9:55 PM

@MonicaCellio True, but we don't know who might be candidates based on that ;)

Gilles

@MonicaCellio I can't be sure. I never received a follow-up email that told me “sorry, we don't want you after all”. Maybe others did, but I think it would be a bit crappy.

(This conversation belongs on chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/16046/the-ban-hammer)

@MichaelKjörling right. We can speculate all we want, but maybe we can just wait a few days and find out. :-)

@MonicaCellio We've waited this long ;)

@Gilles good to know.

@MichaelKjörling and it's a weekend. Go out and build some worlds, and try not to worry about administrative details until Monday. (But on the other hand, if everybody who received the email is prompt in responding, it's always possible the wait will be shorter. Or not -- see "weekend". :-) )

@MonicaCellio "Anywhere in the world time".

I have my own little world that I'm toying with from time to time. It isn't a serious project so other things often take precedence, but it's a fun distraction.

10:00 PM

I have several ideas kicking around for short stories (with associated questions here). Also spare-time stuff.

I'm looking at the stats, and WB is sitting at almost 3,000 visitors/day and ~1,200 users. And then I look at Amateur Radio, which has ~1,600 users and ~500 visitors/day...

And feel almost a little sad.

@MichaelKjörling some topics are more specialized than others.

@MonicaCellio They are. And Worldbuilding does capture a lot of different interests. Amateur Radio is highly specific.

@MichaelKjörling yup. Way fewer people would even be in a position to ask questions on AR, let alone answer them, than here.

Got to run -- TTYL.