The Skunk Works

user41796

12:57 AM

@MahendraGunawardena Thanks for your contributions and I hope you're able to drop in and provide answers!

jhabbott

eh up - how do you think it's going?

HDE 226868

We're doing nicely.

As are you, lately. :-)

user41796

@jhabbott Yeah, don't get me started on stealing my #1 user ranking... :-D

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 I've been #2 on three separate sites at the same time. Oof.

jhabbott

I've been trying to ask two decent questions a day, but it's actually really hard, also get those unanswered ones down... heh twice today I've answered questions from the unanswered pile and at the same time someone else was doing the same thing as me :) it's good as there's multiple answers to those now.

user41796

1:01 AM

@HDE226868 Shall we conspire to shut down his Q & A's? :-D (No, really, I'm joking).

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 I only like rep because it helps me do more mod tasks, which seem to help.

@jhabbott I've got two in the unanswered, if you want to look at them!

jhabbott

hey I don't care, I just want the site to work so it will exist as a proper site

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 Ha.

jhabbott

@hd

HDE 226868

If we ask them, they will come.

jhabbott

1:02 AM

@HDE226868 they're probably too hard for me - completely over my head!

user41796

On a serious note, I think the site is launching well. I was asking how some others thought the site was doing and the metrics were positive in their impression.

HDE 226868

Same. I'm only good at aerospace and some mechanical stuff. Nothing more. But I'm good at research.

I like the variety I'm seeing.

Hey, Mahendra just posted another question!

user41796

Given that we've hit 100+ questions in under a week is a good thing; and our "established user" base keeps growing

user41796

I'm a bit sad we've lost Sabre, but perhaps he'll come back with time. Need to keep the focus on keeping site content / quality high.

HDE 226868

We hit 10 or so within the last 24 hours.

I'm really annoyed that we lost him. I've chatted quite a bit with him over the past few months on various sites.

He won't come back, I think. Unfortunately.

user41796

1:04 AM

@HDE226868 Glad he chose to use some of the questions I suggested. Hopefully, he'll self-answer.

jhabbott

I'm actually a bit disappointed that I'm #1 because I'm not really an expert/pro engineer by any stretch of the imagination (although I love it, and I like hacking, even though I'm crap at it)... so I'm a bit concerned in the sense that it appears to be pure effort of thinking questions and answering them where I can, rather than skill/expertise... meaning we don't have enough true pros. Although some of the Qs and As are super complex!

HDE 226868

But he'll visit, and look, and vote. All behind the scenes.

user41796

@HDE226868 <shrugs shoulders> I can understand and appreciate that.

user41796

@jhabbott Meh, don't worry about it.

HDE 226868

@jhabbott Thinking about it, I'm concerned at how high I've risen, considering that the majority of my knowledge on most stuff comes from books and the internet.

user41796

1:06 AM

For both of you, I'd suggest to not worry about it. The super experienced folk will never announce their credentials, but they'll still contribute.

jhabbott

yeah - I guess we just need to ask questions in their field that are interesting enough for them to chip in

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 Ehhhhh. Some will. I've seen it happen.

jhabbott

so it's a bit of a guessing game for now

user41796

@jhabbott - hopefully you were able to read some of that before I killed the comment. :-) Room owners & mods can go back to comment history to see what was said.

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 Saw it. :-)

user41796

1:09 AM

Regardless, I know of several others that are well enough credentialed and are watching the site.

HDE 226868

I do hope they appoint pro-tem mods at a reasonable date. We waited for about a month and a half on HSM. Not that I want to be one - far from it.

user41796

@HDE226868 You know as a mod you can see the history, right?

jhabbott

am I a room owner or mod? Sorry - I haven't been paying much attention to the meta or this chat much.

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 Actuallly . . . no, I didn't.

user41796

@jhabbott Nope, you're neither.

HDE 226868

1:10 AM

One more thing to learn.

user41796

HSM is a mod, you can see that because his name is in blue. I'm a room owner because my name is in italics

HDE 226868

@jhabbott I don't know how to make you an owner. I failed miserably with GlenH7, so a cm did it.

jhabbott

ok.. well that's fine anyway. Prob for the best as I wouldn't know what to do with it :D

user41796

both of us can click on the little arrow to the left of a comment to look at the history; deleted or not.

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 I wondered why your name was italicized.

Man, I'm clueless in when it comes to chat features.

user41796

1:11 AM

@HDE226868 when @jhabbott hangs out in the room a bit more, I'll make him an owner. :-)

user41796

@HDE226868 Anyway, I'll throw my hat in the ring for pro-tem mods for the site.

user41796

Someone, at some point, should likely start a question on meta asking who our pro-tem mods should be.

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 I'd go vote for you. I've been thinking about nominating Tom Au because of his experience, but he's been a bit dormant lately.

Sabre Tooth started out thread on HSM.

(Sigh)

user41796

@HDE226868 No harm in starting the thread yourself. And no harm in nominating folk who you think are worthy. :)

HDE 226868

We started our nomination 3 days into private beta, which was a bit early . . . and didn't get any results until December. Although Pops did tell us that the whole SE teams was busy with a number of things then.

Maybe I'll do it.

user41796

1:14 AM

TBH, I'm glad Robert nuked my answers about the chat room name as we've got better feedback as a result.

user41796

@HDE226868 December is rough on SE corp for a number of reasons, including hats. :-)

HDE 226868

My first holiday season on SE, so I was new to it all.

jhabbott

what's a pro-tem mod?

HDE 226868

@jhabbott A mod who serves until beta graduation.

The community generally votes on nominees, but SE makes the appointments.

They'll almost always go with the way the community votes.

user41796

unofficially, they continue as mods until the site holds an election

jhabbott

1:16 AM

oh right - so you can add tag sysonyms and things like that? I've been trying to do some things and not able to - I was wondering how it works when nobody has enough rep yet

HDE 226868

@jhabbott What? Mods can do that?

jhabbott

??

HDE 226868

Oh, mannnnn. I have some work to do on HSM.

user41796

@HDE226868 almost always. One of the workplace mods was essentially non-existent, and didn't get re-elected once TW went out of beta

HDE 226868

The lowered privilege thresholds help with community moderation.

user41796

1:17 AM

@HDE226868 Yes, most definitely

HDE 226868

We'll all lose some privileges when we go public.

user41796

mods can do a huge number of things on a site

user41796

@HDE226868 depends upon rep levels

HDE 226868

On HSM and Worldbuilding, there's a huge amount of community moderation. Sometimes, the mods don't have to do an enormous amount once beta gets going.

Aside from flags, that is.

user41796

@jhabbott mods can essentially take care of any of those tasks. Effectively, they have no limits for close votes, delete votes, or tweaks to site mechanics.

user41796

1:19 AM

@HDE226868 that's a very, very, very good thing

user41796

Much better to have community moderation than mod moderation

HDE 226868

Unilateral closing is a real [fill in the blank].

I almost never close questions.

jhabbott

I figure at the very least if I get some rep I'll help by being one of the 10 users with 2k or 5 with 3k - which should help, even if my questions/answers aren't pro level.

user41796

every now and then we have to point out to whingers on Progs that the communtiy shut down their question, not a mod.

HDE 226868

@jhabbott That's the one thing I like about rep.

user41796

1:20 AM

@HDE226868 though shalt walk that line very carefully

user41796

Binding close and delete votes are a huge responsibility. And you need to be ready to weather the fallout that comes with it

user41796

@jhabbott that's one of the most valuable things, actually

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 I know. Fortunately, everyone gets along pretty well. We have yet to have a dispute at any level.

user41796

I'm the top-ranked close voter on Progs. I've got a strong sense of what's on and off-topic for the site and I regularly review the close queue. (it's always full.) My conscience is (almost always) clear when I cast my vote

jhabbott

@HDE226868 you're 16? and a h2g2 fan, nice!

user41796

1:23 AM

@HDE226868 Hee hee. It'll happen. Progs has lost mods over the matter. Although that said, that particular mod took a lot of heat for executing the site focus change that SE dictated. He eventually said FTS, and no one blamed him for that.

HDE 226868

@jhabbott I inherited some of the original books, and I got some of the early radio productions as a gift.

user41796

There was another mod who had life get in the way and stepped down.

HDE 226868

The movie sucks, by the way.

jhabbott

yeah, it's really bad - in fact I watched it with family and we ALL fell asleep, decided not to bother watching the 2nd half that we missed.

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 I'll step down on HSM in a year and a half, because I'll have college. I hope we graduate by then.

user41796

1:25 AM

perfectly acceptable as well

user41796

although you might be over-estimating your first year of college. :-)

HDE 226868

Here we go:

0

Q: Who should our moderators be?

From The 7 Essential Questions of Every Beta: Discussing the criteria of a great moderator is important and picking out potential candidates is a great way to introduce outstanding contributors to your community. and from the Moderator Pro Tempore blog page: If your meta site does not h...

user41796

@jhabbott isn't it gawd-awfully early for your locale right now?

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 Nope. I'm going into physics - maybe astrophysics - and I plan on taking some advanced math.

jhabbott

01:26 - yeah.

user41796

1:26 AM

@HDE226868 It's no fun unless you pick some suggestions

user41796

(did I say victims?!)

HDE 226868

At the end of high school I'll have taken 7 years of science, 4 of engineering, and 4 of math - three of AP calc, including one of multivariable. I'll take the best they can throw at me!

jhabbott

I'm a contractor (iOS) so I work for a few months then dos about in my garage for a few, currently at the end of a contract and working from home, so no early start needed.

HDE 226868

Ah, victims. . . victims. . .

Mahendra Gunawardena

@GlenH7: did not understand your comment :-)

user41796

1:27 AM

@HDE226868 Props to you. I gave up at chaos theory. But the teacher had a thick, thick, thick Polish accent I couldn't decipher

user41796

@MahendraGunawardena That's your line of work, right?

HDE 226868

Sounds like my calc teacher.

Armenian + Iranian + quiet voice = ?

jhabbott

@HDE226868 what's your secret to being so interested in learning? My son just turned 16 and he just wants to play games and watch anime and give up on Spanish because it's boring, etc.

HDE 226868

@jhabbott I've been reading science for seven years.

Oh, the secret is Wikipedia. Absolutely.

And popular science books, up to a certain point. I'd recommend Michio Kaku. A Brief History of Time is always a classic.

user41796

@jhabbott Every kid is different. I coach soccer and help with scouts. I love each and every one of them. But every one has a different personality.

Mahendra Gunawardena

1:30 AM

@GlenH7, LED are less than 2% of my responsibility. Last I worked on LED's was atleast 6 years ago. These day I mostly do future Technology strategy

HDE 226868

Although I didn't have any videogames until I was 12-ish, so that helped.

user41796

@MahendraGunawardena I thought that was your line of work so you'd be perfect to provide an answer to it. You don't have to accept your own answer, but it's good to put the knowledge out there.

user41796

@HDE226868 that's criminal

HDE 226868

@MahendraGunawardena Good to see you!

@GlenH7 It made me love to read.

Stack Exchange

0

Q: Who should our moderators be?

From The 7 Essential Questions of Every Beta: Discussing the criteria of a great moderator is important and picking out potential candidates is a great way to introduce outstanding contributors to your community. and from the Moderator Pro Tempore blog page: If your meta site does not h...

discussion moderators

HDE 226868

1:31 AM

Oh, now the damned thing shows p!

user41796

@HDE226868 There's a 3 - 5 min delay...

jhabbott

I've got a little [1] next to "review" but the review queue seems empty

it won't go away

user41796

Regardless of ticker or one-box (inline comment), there's a 3 - 5 minute delay on the site feeds.

user41796

@jhabbott known and will-never-be-fixed bug

HDE 226868

@jhabbott Look up that on Meta; you'll learn loads about that. It's the total# of posts awaiting review.

user41796

1:34 AM

@jhabbott Generally, that's a VTC or a Reopen queue question that requires several folk to weigh in on before it closes out.

user41796

and since I can't see it, it's likely a vote-to-close that I cast and hasn't received enough attention yet.

Mahendra Gunawardena

@GlenH7 I will wait for Vladimir Cravero to answer. Expect the bi-stable solenoid question I knew the answer for the rest of them to some extend. But it is good to see what others have to say

jhabbott

oh i see - so it's 1 that needs review, but I've already cast my vote on it (maybe I skipped as I wasn't sure, so needs someone else to do it?)

HDE 226868

@jhabbott Ah, yes, you'll be stuck with that for a while, being the only user who has the rep to see that.

Robert might do it.

user41796

@jhabbott right; still needs review but you're already done with it.

jhabbott

1:36 AM

what am I the only user with high enough rep to do?

user41796

@MahendraGunawardena I put the weight lifting question out there under that premise. Wanted to see what others would come back with.

jhabbott

I think I got edit without needing approval at 500 - surely @GlenH7 has that too?

user41796

@jhabbott There's 3 of us past 500 at this point. You, me, and Peter Horvarth.

jhabbott

maybe we all skipped it as it was incomprehensible - I can't remember what it was but I do remember thinking I'm not qualified to answer this so I just left it for someone else

Mahendra Gunawardena

@GlenH7, that is a good question, I think it still lacks the bio-medical engineering aspect. I am no Bio-medical engineer, but I did work for in the medical devices industry and took a physiology class.

jhabbott

1:38 AM

actually - as an editor, can I still make suggested edits, that is if I think something should be edited but I want a second opinion?

user41796

@MahendraGunawardena I've got 2 degrees in the field... :-)

user41796

@jhabbott No. Your edits go through without review.

HDE 226868

I have to go. Food calls. Have a good day/night/whatever, guys!

user41796

@jhabbott Skip is a perfectly valid choice

jhabbott

yeah, fair enough

user41796

1:39 AM

@jhabbott consider it a precursor to having binding votes, if you choose to accept that level of responsibility

jhabbott

ugh

HDE 226868

Oh, and stop starring my posts! :-)

user41796

@HDE226868 fine, have a pin instead.

jhabbott

I felt bad earlier when someone was writing a load of bad tag excerpts and I was rejecting them.

user41796

@jhabbott If they're not good, they're not good. And if they can't be edited to make them good, then reject

user41796

1:41 AM

It can be hard, but that's also how others learn.

jhabbott

it was "Questions about <tag>. <Tag> is the <first para paste from wikipedia>"

user41796

2

A: How can we determine why our tag edits are being rejected?

Have a look here: http://engineering.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/123 Robert Cartaino rejected the edit and stated: Simply defining what a [tag] is rarely helps those using it unless the tag's name itself is ambiguous. Excerpts should describe why and when a tag should be used. ...

Mahendra Gunawardena

@GlenH7, then you the authority, I will refer all questions to you.

jhabbott

Yeah, it's really hard writing them. Though I managed a good one for engineering-history (or at least I think it's good)

user41796

To be perfectly honest, we need to keep in mind that rep is just imaginary numbers. Turn the computer or mobile device off, and that number doesn't mean anything. So it's completely okay to provide constructive feedback on how to make the community better.

user41796

1:43 AM

@MahendraGunawardena I'd prefer someone else to nominate me for pro-tem mod, but I'll throw my hat in the ring. :-)

jhabbott

just like your bank balance then. completely imaginary.

that's the general you, not you specifically :D

user41796

@jhabbott It really is. And it's important to remember to provide corrections kindly. We don't need to call people an arse just because they made a bad suggested edit.

user41796

@jhabbott I dunno. Some days my account flirts with imaginary territory.

user41796

Have a good evening / early morning / day, regardless of your timzone. Time for me to connect with the real world. :-) Oh, and I'll up vote any pro-tem nominations with my name in it..... ;-)

jhabbott

how to do that?

nominate?

never mind I'll search meta

@GlenH7 regarding this question: engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/279/…

First editor added links, you edited to wikipedia links, he tried to edit back, I reviewed that edit and rejected it because his links look a bit spammy (I didn't realise you'd already edited them to wikipedia links at the time, only just noticed that now), but now someone else has edited it back to the rev 2 spammy links offering to sell you CD-ROMs for $60 - what's the solution?

HDE 226868

2:02 AM

@jhabbott It should be all in the meta post, though I'm not sure how to put the flairs in.

Solution? Robert approved it, which is bad. You could rollback the edit.

jhabbott

Is that best? I mean are the other links that bad really? I don't really know, it just looked a bit dodgy is all

and two other people approved, I rejected, so maybe they're right?

re. the pro-tem mod thing... can we have multiple?

HDE 226868

Well, of all the people who care, it's 3-2 against, with me making it 2 for you. I don't think it's likely that some sort of edit war will start - highly unlikely - but it could happen. I would go for a meta post, but I'm not sure if it's too trivial. Maybe a comment would help.

Oh, there are normally 3 pro-tem mods.

And most likely Robert Cartaino will stay sort of involved for the first week or so.

Oh, crap, the links were there before. Oof, it's . . . the same. You approved them the first time.

What the heck; I'm going to put a comment.

Okay, I added the comment.

And I was wrong; it's technically 4-3 against. But hopefully this will turn out to be really minor and can be resolved.

That was something. On that note, good night!

dcorking

9:27 AM

The animation links aren't notably spammy - they are free content from the $60 CD-ROMs. I like them, as I hadn't heard the term 'simplex', but that is just my opinion. Although I put them in originally, I haven't been involved in an edit war.

dcorking

9:40 AM

How do users vote behind the scenes? Surely they need an account with rep to vote ?

Mahendra Gunawardena

11:50 AM

@GlenH7, Just as expected Vladimir Cravero answered the questions. So no tumbleweed. :-)

Mahendra Gunawardena

12:11 PM

@HDE226868, If you have not yet, you might want to check this out. I know you are interested in physics, courses.edx.org/courses/BerkeleyX/EE40LX/1T2015/info

jhabbott

12:22 PM

@HDE226868 I rolled back that link edit - don't have privs to protect it yet though. I want to do some tag synonyms that are bugging me, but need 2k for that! ugh.

@dcorking yeah, the animations are quite nice, we know it wasn't you in edit wars, in fact it wasn't really a war (someone else put your original links back after @GlenH7 edited them) a few people commented that the wikipedia ones are better for pros and I tend to agree.

I also trust wikipedia more to a) stay there. b) improve over time rather than potentially change for the worse. It would be nice to see some animations on the wikipedia pages too though, not sure on their rules for editing in non CC image content.

user41796

@jhabbott The edit you made was the right solution - fix the grammatical stuff and use more neutral links. Not every edit approver clicks through to verify the quality of the suggested links. Wikipedia does get overused, but they also don't try to sell $60 CDs at the same time. I'm not saying the spammy-ish links were wrong, but the huge ads there were off-putting.

user41796

@jhabbott protecting won't stop an edit. The post would need to be locked, which only a mod can do. I don't see a rollback war on that yet, which is why I didn't flag it. That said, if it does start bouncing back and forth then flag for mod attention

jhabbott

ok thanks for the info :)

user41796

yw

jhabbott

@HDE226868 @GlenH7 by the way, I've got access to mod tools now so if you guys want any stats or need something doing let me know. Not a full mode though so can't do many things yet.

user41796

12:29 PM

Do you mind if I edit some of my qualifications into the nomination?

user41796

@jhabbott mod tools are fun.

jhabbott

@GlenH7 you should do some more questions and answers - your rep to Q+A ratio is waaaaay better than mine.. obviously much better quality questions and answers. Do some more and you'll quickly get up. (though hopefully you should get the pro-tem mod thing soon anyway)

@GlenH7 not at all - in fact the question even states that the nominee should edit the answer to indicate they agree. Don't see why this shouldn't include any other relevant information or comments.

user41796

@jhabbott I'll work on that today then.

user41796

And I do need more posts....

jhabbott

btw I'd be happy to pro-tem with you, but can't promise I'd be much good as I might stop devoting as much time to the site after a while, and also I'm not really experienced in it. My point is, not really too bothered but happy to help out if it's actually needed.

user41796

12:36 PM

@jhabbott mods are basically janitors; they are there to clean things up that the community can't take care of. Having binding votes is a big responsibility because it doesn't allow for others to weigh in.

user41796

There's no specific length of time that mods have to serve, but elections tend to be infrequent.

user41796

You'll also find that high rep users can effectively act as mods too. Reviewing the queues; providing constructive comments; reviewing the delete and other 10k tools. The benefit of being a high rep user and not a mod is a) non-binding votes and b) it's much easier to take a break if you need to.

user41796

We have one high rep user on Programmers who is extremely active in community-moderating the site. And he doesn't want to be a mod because he'll frequently nominate borderline questions for closing and wants the community to decide on the matter.

dcorking

@jhabbott CC (or equivalent) would be required to add a pump animation to Wikipedia.

jhabbott

2:27 PM

Guys - let's really focus on trying to get <10% unanswered questions.

1. Check unanswered to see if you can answer any.
2. If you can't, add a comment to suggest improvements to question that might attract answers.
3. Possibly edit the question (add links, clarify language/grammar) to make it more answerable. Also add tags if appropriate to help people find it.
4. Check unvoted answers to questions - upvote any decent answers, even if they don't fully answer the question so long as it adds some value.

any other ideas? I don't want to do anything that would reduce the quality of questions/answers, so trying to be careful about that in the process of figuring out how to improve this stat.

EnergyNumbers

4:22 PM

@jhabbott I wouldn't worry too much about unanswered questions at this point. They can be great hooks to draw in new experts. Find a good, proper, difficult unanswered question. Send a private beta invite to a relevant expert who you know, with a precis of the question, asking them if they'd like to join in and answer this question that no one else can.

3

HDE 226868

@jhabbott I just got editing privileges from my answer to that road question, so I'll go over so posts. I also just went through the queues.

Congrats on 1k, by the way.

jhabbott

@EnergyNumbers oh good point - if we try to reduce that percentage later on when there are more questions won't it be much harder though?

@HDE226868 nice one :)

user41796

@jhabbott Not necessarily. I have seen some sites host an informal "answer unanswered questions" type event.

user41796

They're easy enough to find through the questions / unanswered tab.

Paul Gessler

4:38 PM

@GlenH7 indeed, on [TeX] we have an event for a few hours' duration on the first Saturday of each month. Maybe not needed for us now, but once the site grows I think it's a good way to manage the unanswered number a bit.

user41796

In the past, SE has sponsored events like that. The community sets some sort of measurable goal and SE throws in hats or shirts as prizes.

HDE 226868

Maybe we could offer free T-squares or something.

:-)

Paul Gessler

@HDE226868 or slide rules :-)

HDE 226868

Or pocket protectors.

user41796

HDE 226868

4:51 PM

One day, and Coffee has 69 questions, 13 meta questions, and 13+ chat room name suggestions on one of them.

It's like they're all revved up on . . . coffee.

EnergyNumbers

@jhabbott What GlenH7 said. If it gets low and stays low, then it needs action. I'd say Software Recommendations is in this position: it's almost a year old, and has a 57% answered rate. That looks really bad.

HDE 226868

Worldbuilding's at 100% answered, which is actually sort of bad. There are less opportunities for new users. But I'd take 0% unanswered over 43% unanswered.

EnergyNumbers

Why does Software Recommendations look bad, from that low answered rate? Well, it does emphasise the reservation that some people had before launch: that it's really really hard to answer: "who are the site's experts?". Who's an expert in software recommendation? At least we know that there are experts in each field of engineering, even if we disagree about who's an expert and who isn't, in any given one of them.

user41796

@EnergyNumbers Kind of a shame with software recs. Programmers has made those types of questions off-topic because they're usually pretty low quality. Many of the Progs regulars had been hopeful that SR would find the magic formula to make things work.

EnergyNumbers

@GlenH7 I think that, early on at least, the users did a really good job of setting a high quality hurdle for questions, and enforcing it. And it still might be salvageable. But having used the site a little bit, and lurked there a bit more, I still think there's no such thing as experts in software recommendations. OK, maybe there are some people in the world paid to review all sorts of software, day in day out. They might be experts.

But I think you need thousands of them in the real world, to draw in the dozens of experts needed to sustain a site.

dcorking

5:12 PM

I got upvotes to my answer, but SecondVector's answer looks much better to me (+1 from me) If you know pipelines, please vote:

2

Q: How is gas flow through (extremely long) pipelines monitored and controlled?

(This is closely linked with measuring the Mach number inside a nozzle but it is not regarding the supersonic flow) Friction and heat transfer have effects on the Mach number of the compressible flow (Fanno and Rayleigh flow). As it is extremely important to have tight control over the flow prop...

fluid-mechanics gas pipelines measurements fluid-dynamics

user41796

@dcorking You can always delete off an answer if you'd like

user41796

ie. "I tried my best when I answered it, but the other answer really covers things much better than mine did" is a valid enough reason for self-delete.

user41796

But you made it CW too, so there's not much harm in leaving it there if you want

Nick

Ooh, engineering.

Do you people build engines?

(lol, I know, it's a weak joke but hey, I'm curious and your discipline sounds so vast)

user41796

@Nick No, we drive trains.

Nick

5:25 PM

@GlenH7 Ooh, then you must be familiar with Mark Twain's kid. they call him Chu-Chu..... Chu-Chu Twain.

=_= I am a deep puddle of humour... a roadside dirty puddle.

jhabbott

5:41 PM

Got some engineering questions or insightful answers? The more the better :)

dcorking

5:55 PM

@Nick are you curious about becoming an engineer, or studying more engineering perhaps? Engineering is indeed vast : there are the big four disciplines (civil, mechanical, electrical, civil, and train driving) - building engines comes under mechanical - but there is so much more even than that. Welcome!

user41796

@dcorking Your comment has me wondering if you're a civil engineer. :-)

dcorking

No - I actually tagged a civil question as mechanical. - er ISWYM :D (There have to be some good jokes in there - but the short answer is that I am quite a brusque and intolerant engineer.)

Speaking of disciplines, I like the survey question on meta, and although I already posted an answer for my main discipline, I was thinking of posting another one for the sub-discipline / inter-disciplinary field of Control and Instrument Engineering. Is that helpful?

2

Q: Field distribution of users: what kind of expertise do we have on our SE site

It would be nice to know, more or less, what is the expertise base that we have on Engineering SE. Instead of each person giving a separate answer akin to "Hi, I'm an X engineer", where X is their expertise, perhaps we can set it up like a poll: one separate answer per expertise and people upvo...

discussion

user41796

@dcorking So a typical engineer then...

user41796

@dcorking I'm of two opinions with that particular post. On the one hand, it's nice to know what level of expertise there may be. On the other, it'll become dated and the vast majority of a site's users don't bother with participating in meta.

user41796

That said, no harm in posting another answer.

dcorking

6:04 PM

Sure - I expect it to die in a few days - but interesting for the duration of the private beta.

user41796

My own path has been so convoluted that I don't even dare to try and capture it.

HDE 226868

10:01 PM

@dcorking In a few days, we might be out of private beta.

Well, maybe that's a bit optimistic.

user41796

@HDE226868 I can't find any recent commentary to indicate when the private status ends

HDE 226868

@GlenH7 The top answer here says a week or so:

20

Q: What is "private beta" status?

What is a "private beta"? Is it related to the Beta badge? How does one get the Beta badge?

support private-beta beta-badge

. . . but that's 4-5 years old.

Actually, all the recent ones on Area51 lasted exactly 13 days.

So we have a bit more time to go.

user41796

Still time then to give jhabbott a run for the money on top user status....

HDE 226868

Indeed.

By the way, I tried to get onto the Coffee site and was met with a notice that said

> Warning: this site is currently in private beta for at least 5 more days.

So in theory, we could go public at any moment. . .

Speaking of catching jhabbott, are there any posts you have your eye on?

user41796

@HDE226868 I'm actually trying to put one together regarding faraday cages. Sabre's comment is what sparked it. It seems like they act more like a bandpass filter, but I can't find anything that comes outright and says that.

HDE 226868

10:13 PM

Interesting thought.

user41796

10:37 PM

@HDE226868 We'll see if others agree. ;-)

jhabbott

@GlenH7 you're doing way better than me actually - I've only got 1.67 times more rep than you but I've asked 6 times more questions and answered 2.57 times more!

user41796

Ultimately, it's just a numbers game - in that the more questions & answers you put out there the more rep you'll pull in. You can measure per post rep, but the top rep folk like RobertHarvey on Programmers don't worry about that. They just keep throwing answer after answer out there.

jhabbott

So just because I've done a larger number of mediocre, perhaps bordering on good contributions, you've done a smaller amount but of much better quality

user41796

badges are fun to track too

user41796

equally meaningless; but still fun

jhabbott

10:41 PM

well we need both - we need a good broad range of subjects with varied answers and some super high quality ones... I'm just doing what I can.

so yeah please please please do give me a run for my money - spend this weekend hammering out loads of super high quality questions and answers :D

Ethan48

Did the main site just go down for anyone else? I'm getting the IIS splash screen.

user41796

@Ethan48 I had an issue with meta, but it seems back to normal now

user41796

every now and then the CDN chokes for some reason

Ethan48

@GlenH7 Interesting.

jhabbott

nice Q @GlenH7

user41796

10:44 PM

@jhabbott Thanks. Sabre got me thinking about it. His question on Physics is more focused on cellular signals, but it made me think about why multiple layers are needed

HDE 226868

Nice. Over my head, of course.

user41796

@Ethan48 It's amazing how little equipment they need in order to run all of SE. It's actually a pretty small server farm plus a lot of CDN usage.

user41796

@HDE226868 Well, I could be wrong. But I think that the practical answer is yes because the conducting material of the cage has to be sized according to the frequency filtered

user41796

I hope I don't have to do a lot of research to self-answer that one because I'd like to know.

HDE 226868

@Ethan48 There seems to have been an issue:

3

Q: What happened to the stackexchange network?

A few minutes ago the whole SE network seemed to be inaccessable, and on some pages I still get the same errors, either a 404 error: or the following: (I get these errors when I visit area51, Islam.SE, and Stackexchange.com (except for this meta))

bug

Can someone reply to confirm that they can get into this room? I still can't get into some, though messages show that they're operational.

jhabbott

10:52 PM

??

Paul Gessler

@HDE226868 I'm here! waves

Ethan48

@HDE226868 Yeah, I never lost chat, just the site itself.

HDE 226868

Ah, chat's back for me now.

Transcript for