The Factory Floor

7:03 AM

Universe Factory — Medium: Democracy Building in the Worldbuilding World

posted on February 22, 2016 by bilbo pingouin

It was recently announced that Worldbuilding.SE was to graduate. That is leaving the beta mode. One of the elements of the graduation is… Continue reading on Medium »

Tim B

11:20 AM

People are downvoting examples to say that they're off topic but not adding an explanation for why - to be useful really we need you to add your reason

overactor

Hi guys, any news about the design?

Tim B

1:10 PM

I've not heard anything, might be worth someone posting a comment asking :)

bilbo_pingouin

1:47 PM

For risk factors, do we want to have something like: "google the terms of the question first and come back asking it later"... as sometimes, the OP use words they clearly don't understand, supernovae, black holes, etc. And with their failed understanding, their question has no sense..?

In principle, in several other sites, the OP are required to show that they looked for a solution by themselves before asking it here. That would be somehow the same idea. People should look up what they are talking about. At least, when a simple read of the corresponding wikipedia article would help them refine their question...

One example (that I already cited) is worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/36456/… where the OP would profit a lot from reading the wiki page about supernovae...

Mourdos

2:06 PM

The downvote button for questions, the hover text is: 'Does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful'. Not having any evidence of knowing what they are asking is a clear lack of research effort. Note that this does not translate into 'must have read wikipedia article', however it is a good start :P

bilbo_pingouin

2:21 PM

I know, but in extreme cases, I find that that isn't enough...

but ok, I could DV more often :)

Mourdos

2:53 PM

Especially since downvoting a question costs no rep

bilbo_pingouin

yes, but it has the default of letting anyone answer it, making it as one image of WB... that I'd rather avoid

and to me, having a question on-hold feels less agressive than downvote. The OP do not lose any reputation and has a chance to fix their question. A DV, even if they do fix their question, it is not so likely that the downvoter will come back to check and thus remove the vote

DaaaahWhoosh

@bilbo_pingouin I think there are still questions that deserve downvotes, like questions that one believes can never be fixed. Like a question that doesn't know what it's talking about, even if the OP does research they'll only figure out how stupid the question was

holding questions implies they can be fixed, downvoting implies they should be deleted

Mourdos

3:08 PM

upvotes are worth a lot more than downvotes for the person asking the question. If they fix it then they recover rep.

DaaaahWhoosh

but I would say that less people look at downvoted questions

if it's put on hold and then edited, it at least shows up in the review queue

Mourdos

The problem here seems to be that stack exchange design is to downvote bad questions, but people want to put them on hold to be nice instead.

edited questions are bumped to the top of the active stack, just like new questions.

Once it gets back to 0 or higher votes, people will treat it like a new question.

Because very few people look at the age of a question

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, I guess I agree with that

we are way too nice around here

I don't like downvoting because I don't have confidence in my own opinions, but I assume that's a personal deficiency. Everyone else should be downvoting way more than me

but maybe the lack of downvotes is just part of the accept-anything mindset a lot of people have gotten into for this site

bilbo_pingouin

3:30 PM

that's also the advantage of closing questions... there are 4 other persons judging the status... downvote, is less effective but more definitive

the problem, is that people still answer bad questions, even if there aren't any upvotes... so on-hold is to make clear to everyone that there is a problem with that question

and is a first step to it being deleted... That's an interesting question, can one delete a question that isn't on-hold? High-rep users? I suppose mods can.

DaaaahWhoosh

the OP can self-delete

and after a while, aren't downvoted questions hidden for low-rep users?

Tim B

3:54 PM

@bilbo_pingouin Mods can, non-mods need to close it first, and there are still limitations such as upvoted answers etc

DaaaahWhoosh

4:18 PM

I think there was one question that used it

I already designed a whole world around balloon whales, it was surprisingly easy

do you have a question in mind, or do you just want to use that tag?

I think the edits were a bit too drastic, you might just want to ask your own version

well, the main idea of edits is to make the question more readable while still maintaining the author's intent, so you probably shouldn't change the criteria

or maybe I'm wrong, looks like the edit was accepted

James

That was me

Mourdos

4:34 PM

I just rejected an attempted edit.

James

I would leave the new tags on, I added those, it doesn't change the intent

Mourdos

it removed tags, and changed certain things in the conditions

James

@Mourdos Yeah that was to fix an overly ambitious previous change.

Mourdos

then why not rollback?

Caleb attempted to remove science based and transportation

It seems so

it might even have come it just after his was approved

James

@RileySantos May need to clear cache

Mourdos

4:38 PM

which is why the tags looked like being removed

Because your chat profile is not quite the same as your stack exchange profie

it is 'linked', but is not the same

its complicated, and that is about I know about it

log out of chat

clear cache

This profile here links to your now defunct account on worldbuilding

chat.stackexchange.com/users/189179/riley-santos

depends on your browser

My problem with the whale question is it feels like someone has a problem with a story.

And we are not here for plot advice.

DaaaahWhoosh

yep, I don't think the borderline-too-aggressive edits can save it

Mourdos

Hey @CalebWoodman

:P

Yeah. I tend to very aggressively cling to the 'no, this is a problem in your story, not about worldbuilding' line.

Yes, because it too, would be off topic

DaaaahWhoosh

@CalebWoodman If you can ask a similar, on-topic question it will almost certainly not be a duplicate

Mourdos

The problem is, I don't know how this would be a similar topic and on topic.

Nope

I can't see artificially floating whales for a short amount of time as on topic in any way. Were it a creature design question, about whales that could float, then it would be on topic.

James

@DaaaahWhoosh Asking for a technological way to do something seems on topic for me...

Mourdos

4:52 PM

Does it James? It still smells a lot like plot.

DaaaahWhoosh

@James might be too broad. If you're asking if it's possible, then sure, but if you're asking how to do it, then I'd need to see your constraints first

Tim B

well the plot discussion needs to happen after the Character Based discussion is done

I don't necersarilly agree with Mourdos

It seems my Character Based discussion question isn't working how I hoped though. I might have to delete it and try something else

since so far all we're getting is "I don't think it's on topic" with no explanation

which doesn't help

DaaaahWhoosh

5:11 PM

@TimB I think all the examples are bad examples of the 'character based' issue

not that I have better examples, but those ones don't seem to fit

Tim B

well I've asked repeatedly for examples and got tumbleweed

so I went through the case studies and that was all I had that even vaguely applied

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, if I have time I'll try and find some

Tim B

Andrei's answer basically covered it all caleb

it all comes down to mass

your new arm has to come from somewhere

to do that you need a lot of cells

so close as a dupe to the hydra question and be done :)

DaaaahWhoosh

I think that question could very well be idea generation, answerers sticking to 'it can't be done' might be their way of keeping it on-topic

Samuel

5:36 PM

Is there a shortcut for linking to a worldbuilding question so the title shows up as the link text? Similar to the tour shortcut.

DaaaahWhoosh

@Samuel I second this question, I really don't like having to copy the title and URL

As I recall, at least in comments, it just makes the link into a link if you type the URL

but meta.stackexchange.com/a/89809 seems to say that it does convert it for you

Worldbuilding Meta

1

Q: Ethics of voting for low-rep users?

I have a fetish. One that I am extremely careful about any place serious. I like helping people. I like helping new people. And I like voting for people so they don't have to scrape and agonize to get to the relatively tiny rep I have after months. But this is SE. And this is WB. And while new pe...

DaaaahWhoosh

6:12 PM

oh, man, I'm looking through old Meta questions, and it looks like nothing has changed since the beginning

except apparently they thought that questions could be 'too localized' - meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/14/…

and I guess this is the birth of reality-check: meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/20/…

our elevator pitch seems to be 'Making fictional worlds more credible.' Not too poetic, but I think it's a good foundation

2

James

7:12 PM

@TimB I am going to go through your stuff. I don't log in much if at all most weekends

Mourdos

We also burninated a popular tag that was being misused

Worldbuilding Meta

8:51 PM

0

Q: How to boost upvotes on questions

I have questions. Good questions. Hot questions. Quite a few of them. They get many views. They get many answer-upvotes. But. I don't get credited for asking a question worthy of an answer of quality. If you like an answer to a question, unless it's poetic or comedic, then it only makes sense th...

discussion voting up-votes

0

Q: Is it fair to allow non-questions to be upvoted on meta?

If you want to post something on meta, you can. There is no real limitation to this. However. If you post something that is't a question, or make comments in the form of 'answers', is it at all right that your rep goes up? * *For doing nothing relating to the 'goal' of SE, which is: "Ask que...

discussion

bilbo_pingouin

@CalebWoodman, it's probably better here than on meta... what do you mean "oh do I upvote ?"?

it can be that I wasn't clear... but of course, people should vote for the questions, not for the OP

but, if you upvote good questions, and others do it actively, there will be more questions upvoted, and eventually yours as well

@Samuel In a post, question or answer, providing the link (http and not https!) will get the title automatically

See... meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/2594/…, if you click edit on the answer, you'll see what I mean :)

in a comment, I don't believe it works...

Samuel

@bilbo_pingouin I was more interested in saving time for the comments. But good to know for answers.

bilbo_pingouin

yeah... AFAIK, it's not possible there. Probably because they thought that on comments people would not cite the whole title of a question

Samuel

Yeah, fair enough.

bilbo_pingouin

9:07 PM

By the way, it is the same here...

3

Q: Risk Factor definition: Too Individual/Character Based

As the Risk Factor identified as most important by this post I'm starting a discussion on Too Individual/Character Based. Please start answers to this question discussing each of the examples, adding more examples, and discussing just where to draw the line. Once we've reached a consensus and up...

discussion on-topic

Just the link without anything else leads to ^^^

James

@CalebWoodman Balloon whale bob?

That was my fourth guess

HDE 226868

@CalebWoodman Impressive. By the way, is the suspend-disbelief tag necessary here? I feel like it could cover a loooot of questions on Worldbuilding.

Heck, sometimes I have to suspend my disbelief just to visit the site.

3

James

1. Balloon Whale Bob

2. Neptune

3. My imaginary friend snotgoblin

@HDE226868 I feel like that tag is implied on basically every question here...

Does anyone know what our timeline is for getting the site design applied? I want to know if our robot will be in the final draft...I have an idea.

@CalebWoodman I did for quite a while but then world building got into meta and I dont visit much anymore

bilbo_pingouin

@James the same question was asked earlier today... as most I supposed they were waiting for the election to end... but now...

I know you probably hear it much too often, but... is there any plan on when we could get the updated version? — bilbo_pingouin 23 secs ago

asked on the meta post ^^^

James

9:25 PM

@bilbo_pingouin Thanks, Ill check back for a response later.

...on a side note I just made up the name snotgoblin and I have the urge to write a children's book.

HDE 226868

@James This is the last time I'll bug you about it, but I did finally get values for you for the stability answer I've been bugging you with updates about, and the system is very, very stable for the values I chose.

James

@HDE226868 Are you planning to add it to the answer?

HDE 226868

@James I just did.

James

@HDE226868 ..sweet.

HDE 226868

Surprisingly, they all fit onto a single sheet of paper when I handwrote it all out.

James

9:31 PM

@HDE226868 dang. thats impressive.

HDE 226868