The Axon Terminal

Christian Hummeluhr

6:43 AM

That's weird. My SE bar tells me there are 8 posts awaiting review, but there aren't actually any.

Steven Jeuris

9:14 AM

@ChristianHummeluhr I think it does that when you decided to skip them.

Christian Hummeluhr

10:03 AM

Oh

Thanks @StevenJeuris

I thought it had something to do with moderator tools, since I never had any review notifications before.

Christian Hummeluhr

10:24 AM

So ... I ran into a kind of unique question. I think it's clear enough what they're asking, and clear enough from the question body what the apparently correct answer is, but that answer is ruled out a priori without real explanation. Therefore, this fits no close reason, but cannot be answered. cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/8731/…

Steven Jeuris

12:58 PM

@ChristianHummeluhr IF it is a good question, an answer can still be 'this can not be answered for this reason ...'.

Christian Hummeluhr

2:15 PM

@StevenJeuris Obviously the question is if it is a good question. :v

Christian Hummeluhr

3:18 PM

beep boop

Steven Jeuris

@ChristianHummeluhr You are too early dude. :)

Christian Hummeluhr

@StevenJeuris Granted. :v

Josh

party time! who brought cookies?

Steven Jeuris

@Josh I got a danish candy stick ... does that count?

Christian Hummeluhr

Does it have salmiak?

Steven Jeuris

3:21 PM

Nah ... although I do like some of those.

Christian Hummeluhr

I miss salty candy.

Josh

Hold on, I'll have to google that to see what it is first...

Hmm I'm guessing Google got this one wrong... 2.bp.blogspot.com/_Yzmw3PB1YGw/TRJ4Ug44vcI/AAAAAAAAAY0/…

Christian Hummeluhr

I think the only Danish candy called "danish [x]" are cookies, incidentally.

Steven Jeuris

Pastries ... no?

Christian Hummeluhr

Steven Jeuris

3:23 PM

I love danish pecan.

Christian Hummeluhr

welp, I stand corrected.

Steven Jeuris

@ChristianHummeluhr Is that DANISH???!

I'd rather say English. :)

Biscuits.

Christian Hummeluhr

Those are called Danish cookies.

They specifically come in that round box and have those specific cookies.

They're awful, by the way. "Export product." :v

Steven Jeuris

I love them!

Always had those as a kid, ...

Christian Hummeluhr

Fascinating ...

Steven Jeuris

3:28 PM

Guess we already partially started to introductions ... :)

Wasn't @Krysta joining as well?

Christian Hummeluhr

Not sure.

worth a try @Krysta @JoshGitlin

Steven Jeuris

JoshGitlin was working I believe.

Christian Hummeluhr

Ah, yeah.

We can give it a couple of minutes, but we knew this could happen, so let's just start if no one jumps in by then.

Steven Jeuris

@ChristianHummeluhr Sure.

@Josh You were attending?

Josh

Yep, I'll be here. I'm working at the same time, so I may jump in and out a bit.

Steven Jeuris

3:35 PM

k

Christian Hummeluhr

No problem.

I'll write up a summary of what we discuss as far as spring cleaning goes and post it as an answer after the meeting.

Steven Jeuris

K.

I don't see that new off-topic reason being suggested on meta, .. who would write that up? Otherwise I'll do that now.

Christian Hummeluhr

Well, we can start with introductions: My name is Christian, and I'm a cognitive science addict. I mean, I'm a methodology grad student at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. I mostly study Bayes factors now, but have done some work on working memory in the past.

Josh

I'm a PhD student in cognitive science & psychology. I have a lot of different research interests, but my dissertation is mostly on mechanisms of statistical learning -- which could basically be summed up as "how do people form new chunks of information?" I also do a lot of work on methodology for online experiments, some EEG work on learning, and some robotics stuff too.

Steven Jeuris

Just a sec, ... committing final changes and then my attention is here 100%. :)

Christian Hummeluhr

3:43 PM

That sounds a lot like working memory. What's the difference between WM chunking and statistical learning?

Josh

beats me

Christian Hummeluhr

I like you.

Josh

you say construct, I say con-struct

part of what I'm doing is taking lots of different kinds of tests: statistical learning proper, implicit motor learning, chunking, etc... and running the same kinds of manipulations in all of them and showing the same kinds of patterns

Christian Hummeluhr

That makes me think of a paper I just read in psychmethods, one sec

comp-si.org/workshop-14-files/Butner_Psych%20Methods%202014.pdf

It would be really interesting to investigate whether different tasks like that have the same topologies.

Josh

Neat. I'll definitely take a closer look at this. I'm a sucker for analysis methods that don't involve t-tests.

Christian Hummeluhr

3:48 PM

YES

Steven Jeuris

I'm a PhD student in Human-Computer Interaction in Denmark. Mainly working on a new paradigm to interact with computing devices. Thus not that related to cognitive sciences, but for e.g. interruption studies I sometimes need to dig into the literature.

Josh

That looks neat!

Steven Jeuris

@Josh Looks much neater lately ... haven't done a new release in quite some time. Bunch of cool stuff coming up for my final thesis.

@Josh Haha ... t-tests is usually as far as I go, ... that and ANOVA. :)

So yeah .. I'm on the softer side of science.

Krysta

Late but here!

Christian Hummeluhr

Yay, hi @Krysta

Steven Jeuris

3:51 PM

Hiya @Krysta! Glad you could make it.

Josh

Full disclosure, the paper I am revising right now is full of ANOVAs. I had to turn in my Bayesian badge temporarily on my way into the lab this morning.

Christian Hummeluhr

Yeah, everyone has to use it. Don't even think about using anything other than a linear model of some kind, no reviewer wants any of that.

That's why it's so tiring.

Krysta

Gawd, I am masquerading as a statistician lately trying to get an answer to "what N do we need to create a calibration curve if we want as little error as possible on a reasonable budget without explicitly stating what a reasonable budget might be"

Which is fun.

Steven Jeuris

Reviewers are idiots .... implicitly stating we all are idiots obviously.

Krysta

Oh hey, Laevo looks intriguing. I've wanted a better way to link the multiple files/programs necessary for a single task for a real long time.

Steven Jeuris

3:55 PM

Calibration curve

In analytical chemistry, a calibration curve is a general method for determining the concentration of a substance in an unknown sample by comparing the unknown to a set of standard samples of known concentration. A calibration curve is one approach to the problem of instrument calibration; other approaches may mix the standard into the unknown, giving an internal standard. The calibration curve is a plot of how the instrumental response, the so-called analytical signal, changes with the concentration of the analyte (the substance to be measured). The operator prepares a series of standards across...

For those like me that didn't know what that was ...

Christian Hummeluhr

Thanks, I actually assumed it was a variant on corridors of stability.

Way to prime me, @Krysta

Krysta

Hah. Priming is all!!

Steven Jeuris

Okay ... let's get started with some post slaying?

Krysta

Define please

Christian Hummeluhr

Well, let's talk spring cleaning, anyway. Exciting!

Steven Jeuris

3:59 PM

@Krysta Aha, ... Krysta, ... seems like you were planning to write up the off-topic reason. Be sure to tag it feature-request.

Krysta

Oh thanks, I woulda missed that.

Josh

Sorry if I'm hijacking the order of things, but this is something I was wondering about. Since @StevenJeuris is a mod, maybe we can tackle it now? What will it take to get this change made: meta.cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/974/…

Christian Hummeluhr

I guess it fits under improving the community. :v

Steven Jeuris

:)

Josh

And post clean-up too, since it's about how to close off a bunch of posts that should probably be off-topic

Christian Hummeluhr

4:00 PM

More generally, I also wonder what calculation you guys make about community consensus. How much agreement is enough agreement?

Steven Jeuris

5 up votes .. let's see whether I can adjust that now.

I will do a thorough read of the whole thread again first though.

@ChristianHummeluhr That is an interesting first question, ... which we will actually need to take into account as we make decisions now.

But I guess 5 people agreeing is a good guideline, comparable to closing reasons.

I tend to mod-close more quickly when it is 'more obvious', ... subjective obviously, but one of the powers you get as a mod. :)

Christian Hummeluhr

That makes sense.

Also, I think the only people who have any problem with you guys using your mod powers as you see fit are you yourselves and maybe caseyr. :v

Krysta

well, here's a question

we had talked about making the "no initial research" reason part of the off-topic closure reasons

is that because those are the only closure reasons we can touch?

can we add text to the Ask A Question screen? that might be more effective at getting good questions

Something along the lines of . . . "Bear in mind that cognitive sciences as a discipline cannot explain the behavior of any individual with very much certainty at all; in addition, your question is more likely to get helpful attention if you show us what steps you have already taken to answer the question on your own."

Christian Hummeluhr

Maybe we should save some of the mod-specific questions for when Steven isn't the only mod present. It's not really fair to ask him to unilaterally represent or make decisions for the mods.

Josh

I'm somewhat against the idea of making

'no initial research' a close reason.

I think that it's usually correlated with other problems that should result in closure.

Christian Hummeluhr

4:09 PM

Jeromy made a post that captured how I feel pretty well about it once, let me find it.

Josh

But if someone shows up and asks "What's a stroop test?" then we can give them an answer, even if they could have googled it and gotten one that way. Part of the purpose of the site is to build a repository of information along these lines. If the info is already out there in a different format, then we can bring it into the SE format and all the benefits that the format has.

Christian Hummeluhr

7

Q: How can we can encourage questions to show proof of initial research?

I think that better questions show some at least rudimentary level of initial research. This might just be: "I've read the first hit of a Google search, and I received conflicting answers." "I did a search on Google Scholar, and read journal article X, but something still wasn't clear." At ...

I think this is a good explanation of what I usually call a minimal research criterion, i.e., the author has done anything at all that we can use as a starting point.

Krysta

I agree with Jeromy--and I think giving some guidance in the Ask A Question screen would be helpful.

Christian Hummeluhr

Authors that define their questions or answers purely in terms of their personal tacit knowledge invariably ask bad questions. It is perfectly reasonable to ask them to make a minimal, in the most literal sense of that, attempt to connect that tacit knowledge with some kind of context.

Krysta

There was some post about theology.SE I think having guidance in their ask screen--let me see if I can find that.

Steven Jeuris

4:14 PM

@Krysta Yup.

The other ones aren't site-specific but network wide.

@Krysta This I'd have to look up.

Unless @JoshGitlin pops by, believe he might know by heart.

Krysta

0

A: Do we want a warning about scientific answers before users answer?

New answer notification proposal: I tried to keep the lengths identical (8 lines). Thanks for contributing an answer to Cognitive Sciences - Stack Exchange! The best response to a Cognitive Science - Stack Exchange question answers the question, the whole question, and nothing but the questio...

there it is

it was Skeptics

Steven Jeuris

@Josh We aren't deciding on the 'no initial research' question today, ... but I do hope to see a meta post up and running at the end of this meeting to get the conversation publicly started.

Krysta

and it looks like it was in their Answer screen, not their Ask--can we not add anything to the Ask?

Christian Hummeluhr

@StevenJeuris Let's generally stick to discussing things rather than making decisions.

Steven Jeuris

@Krysta I'll search now.

Krysta

4:18 PM

ok I think I have finished the NIR off-topic meta post

Christian Hummeluhr

@Josh, what do you think about a minimal research criterion? I really see it as more requiring them to explain their thought process behind the question a little, rather than requiring them to do research.

Steven Jeuris

Hmm .. I could have added this chat session as a community event by the way ... I will remember for next time.

Krysta

I agree Christian--the wording I've used in the post (which I am compulsively re-reading) is "This question gives no information about what steps the author has taken to answer the question on their own."

Josh

I think that's fine - but then it basically falls under "unclear what you're asking" if they haven't explained the thought process sufficiently

Christian Hummeluhr

@Krysta I think that is requiring them to do research, though. There was another meta post (can't remember) which stated a pretty difficult problem: if we require research, what may happen is that people end up actually doing the research, finding the answer, and never posting the question. That is capital B-A-D bad.

Krysta

4:23 PM

I think there are questions that are clearly stated but insufficiently articulated or explained (they do tend to be very short ones), but let me check my memory and find some like that

but @Chris

BAH

but @ChristianHummeluhr, if the question is easily answerable by a google, then there isn't a need for an SE answer. shouldn't we focus on things that aren't easily answerable by basic google-fu?

Josh

There are lots of times where I search Stack Overflow instead of Google because the voting system is a useful way of evaluating the validity of the answer.

Christian Hummeluhr

I think this used to be the case, but SE seems to have changed their policy on this. Current policy seems to agree with @Josh.

Steven Jeuris

@Josh Hmm, true. But that doesn't give specific guidance on what they should do. We can't modify that close reason, nor link to a specific meta post.

Krysta

I think this question is a good example of what I'm thinking of--it's quite clear what they're asking, but it's still not a good question

0

A: Why do people often do unnecessary things while performing a main task?

Based on the article in my answer here, shifting attention and voluntary movement cause changes in the brain. In the example below, the cat's Raphe nucleus firing is subdued as the cat is orienting to look. I would hypothesize that shifting focus between the fun activity (ex:playing with a pen...

Steven Jeuris

With our custom off-topic reason we can.

Quick sidenote, ... we can have 3 custom off-topic close reasons.

Christian Hummeluhr

4:26 PM

Good to know.

@Krysta Agreed, but it's a bad question because it is loaded, not because minimal research hasn't been done. The problem is that the question is framed purely in terms of the author's personal tacit knowledge.

Krysta

So maybe we can subsume no initial research & personal tacit knowledge under one closure reason. . . is there a superset that can be made of those two?

Christian Hummeluhr

"I am voting to close this question because it appears to be defined purely in terms of the author's personal tacit knowledge."?

If the question satisfies Jeromy's very minimal criterion, then it isn't defined purely in terms of the author's personal knowledge.

Krysta

I'd be fine with that. @StevenJeuris? @Josh?

Steven Jeuris

@ChristianHummeluhr That sounds well .. duh.

That is why you are asking a question no?

I prefer Krysta's (the one I starred to the right), much more.

Krysta

I think the problem is both personal and tacit--anecdotal and unsupported.

Christian Hummeluhr

4:33 PM

The Babbage closure?

Steven Jeuris

"This question give no information about what steps ..."

Christian Hummeluhr

I didn't realize Babbage was on the table here.

Hm, I don't see that starred.

Krysta

Oh man if we could have a Babbage closure I would just . . . I would just. . .

Christian Hummeluhr

Oh

@Krysta I know

Oh, now it appeared.

Steven Jeuris

Sorry to ruin all the fun, ... but won't happen. :)

Krysta

4:34 PM

I know, but a girl can dream!

Steven Jeuris

Maybe temporarily on the 1th of April.

Christian Hummeluhr

Count me on the dream team.

Krysta

Posted the No Initial Research closure thingy in meta, y'all go and comment on it.

Steven Jeuris

I got feedback on the answer disclaimer thingy ...

Josh

@StevenJeuris I think I agree that this message is better. But no information about what steps the author took isn't by itself the problem. There are plenty of clear questions that don't explain the author's logic.

Steven Jeuris

4:36 PM

We (us mods) can't do it ourselves, it requires community moderator intervention.

Josh

er.. prior steps that they took, not 'logic'

Christian Hummeluhr

Tyranny! Oligarchy!

Steven Jeuris

In other words, we need to come to an obvious agreement on meta, after which we can contact the.

Still awaiting reply on whether or not it is possible for 'question disclaimers' as well.

Christian Hummeluhr

@Krysta It might be helpful if you re-post both the concrete proposals as answers so people can vote on them in addition to the general initiative.

Krysta

As soon as I'm done getting distracted by that interesting question about cognitive psychology and game design. . .

Christian Hummeluhr

4:38 PM

@StevenJeuris I'm going to post a Meta question about "How much agreement is enough agreement?" if it's alright with you.

Steven Jeuris

@ChristianHummeluhr Since when do you need permission to post meta stuff? :)

Christian Hummeluhr

Since I started thinking about posting questions pertaining to moderator behavior.

I'm sure I'll grow into it. :v

Steven Jeuris

Caseyr beat you to it though.

Josh

And we saw what happened there...

Steven Jeuris

Exactly .... ;p

Christian Hummeluhr

4:44 PM

No thank you, I have seen what happens to the proud when they take on the Throne.

Steven Jeuris

So, .. regarding the disclaimer when ASKING questions.

Josh

Steven Jeuris

Just realized, isn't that the whole 'help' section which shows up the first time you ask?

There is some custom text there we can edit.

3

Q: What should we list in the "Ask about..." / "Don't ask about..." section of /about?

The moderators can edit the content of the two boxes under the Get answers to practical, detailed questions section of our /about page. I just added some text to indicate that self help questions and questions seeking medical advice should not be asked. I'd love suggestions for improving the wor...

discussion scope

Meta Cognition

1

Q: Proposed Reason for Closure: No Initial Reseach

In chat, we've talked about how unformed, unsourced questions weaken the utility of CogSci.SE, and how requiring some initial research might improve the general level of questions coming from new users. I would love an off-topic option, and possibly text in Ask A Question, saying something along ...

feature-request close-reasons

1

Q: How much agreement is enough agreement?

When we have votes and discussions on Meta about aspects of the community like post standards, scope, close messages and other things that effectively require approval by the (diamond-having) moderators, it is unclear exactly how much support a proposal needs to earn before it will be enacted. H...

discussion

Christian Hummeluhr

I guess it would be an okay alternative if we can't get the good stuff.

Steven Jeuris

4:47 PM

@ChristianHummeluhr We can get 'the good stuff' for answer disclaimers for sure, ... just we'd have to contact CM.

Christian Hummeluhr

That's good, but I agree with @Krysta it's more about the questions. Good questions by and large seem to attract good answers.

Anyway, I think we can let the questions run. I know we're way overtime here already, but we never got to actually discuss any spring cleaning efforts and ended up having more of a structural discussion. Does everyone have ~15 minutes?

Josh

I can stick around

Christian Hummeluhr

How much do you all vote?

Josh

too much :-P

I think I've got over 1,000 votes now

Christian Hummeluhr

That's really good. I think it's unfortunate that we have such a narrow voting range, it's extremely rare to see any posts with >10 votes that aren't from 2012.

Similarly, obviously poor posts often don't really get downvoted very much, which kind of hurts the site's value. That's getting better, though.

How can we get people out to vote? (Mandatory voting!)

Josh

4:58 PM

Yeah, there clearly aren't enough people actively voting relative to the size of the site. Part of it could be that people have different thresholds for voting. I tend to upvote almost anything that is within scope and minimally useful, but there are probably lots of people who only upvote posts that they feel strongly about.

Steven Jeuris

@ChristianHummeluhr Me personally not much. Often I don't know enough about the topic to safely vote.

I have 1194 votes.

Christian Hummeluhr

825. A shameful voter. :[

Steven Jeuris

... but have been around a lot longer. ;p

Normalize it ... divide by months on the site. ;p

Christian Hummeluhr

24. :[[

Steven Jeuris

30.61538461538462

Actually an interesting metric ... maybe more valuable to put on profile page than overall vote count. :)

Josh

5:02 PM

91...

Christian Hummeluhr

> I tend to upvote almost anything that is within scope and minimally useful

This is my voting strategy too.

But I only adopted it recently.

Steven Jeuris

@ChristianHummeluhr Down vote early and often, for sure! We need more down voting.

Christian Hummeluhr

Basically, if I can answer yes to "Did I learn a little bit from that?" I will upvote. I don't need to be a social psychologist to know that a Q/A taught me something.

Josh

I am a more conservative down voter... in part because I worry about squashing the hopes and dreams of potential site contributors. I try to comment first before downvoting

Steven Jeuris

Anyone in here against this?

6

A: Should we adjust the 'self-help' close message?

Building on Jeromy's answer, another solution could be to change the self-help close to cover multiple different kinds of self-help questions: Questions about the behavior of an individual person are off-topic. If you are concerned about a potential medical issue, please seek the advice of a ...

Or for it ... but still sees problems with it?

Christian Hummeluhr

5:08 PM

No problem here.

Josh

I like it, but I wrote it...

Steven Jeuris

@Josh Yeah, but you also wrote "Questions about a medical diagnoses for an individual person are off-topic. Please consult a medical professional.". :)

Josh

Yeah I don't like that one anymore

Steven Jeuris

Wait, I don't understand the second answer. It seems like you read it as INsufficient support? — Christian Hummeluhr 2 mins ago

That is what I read indeed.

Updated ...

Christian Hummeluhr

I'm thinking about posting a "Get out the vote" question because I think it would be great to get more people on board with voting for "within scope and minimally useful", especially for new users' posts. Good/bad idea?

Steven Jeuris

5:15 PM

The self-help close reason currently links to this meta post: meta.cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/502/…

I believe that can stay ...

Josh

@ChristianHummeluhr It can't hurt. I don't know if it will be terribly impactful since the people who read meta probably already vote

Steven Jeuris

@ChristianHummeluhr Can't quite follow what you mean by 'get out the vote'.

Josh

@StevenJeuris I agree. And the first answer is great

Christian Hummeluhr

@StevenJeuris In normal politics, it means a campaign encouraging people to go vote.

But yeah, I think you're right, Josh.

I'll throw it out for any potential conservative upvoters. Like you said, can't hurt.

Steven Jeuris

Okay, ... the off-topic close reason will go live once I get confirmation from one of the other mods.

Poke @JoshGitlin.

Christian Hummeluhr

5:19 PM

woop

Steven Jeuris

Poke @JeromyAnglim.

Christian Hummeluhr

Okay, I think that about wraps it up? This ended up a little less organized and much more over time than I had hoped, but very useful all the same. Thanks a lot to everyone who showed up @StevenJeuris @Josh @Krysta

Josh

Thanks for taking the initiative to get this going. I'll try to stop by more often.

Steven Jeuris

@ChristianHummeluhr Thank you for organizing!

Christian Hummeluhr

Just ask a quick last question, would you prefer this to be every two weeks or once a month, or something else?

Steven Jeuris

5:26 PM

@ChristianHummeluhr Every two weeks would work, .. but I'd want to stick to the one hour thing though ...

That is also much easier to do IF you do it every two weeks.

Next times I can also announce it publicly on the front site.

Christian Hummeluhr

Agreed, and that would be excellent.

Steven Jeuris

(not that I expect that to have too much of an impact, but it makes it more official)

Christian Hummeluhr

If we pick up even one regular every few months, that counts for a lot.

Josh

We could also try and set a more specific agenda on meta

people could upvote topics that they want to discuss

might help with the 1-hour thing

Steven Jeuris

@Josh Good idea.

Christian Hummeluhr

5:30 PM

Yeah.

I think the topic was set reasonably narrowly, but we trailed off too much. It's hard to moderate this format because you end up with multiple ongoing threads at the same time.

Josh

Yes, agreed. I think the topic set-up was fine. Next time we can try to stick more to the meta post

Christian Hummeluhr

Part of it was just pent up questions for the management, too.

It would be really good if we could solve the timezone problem somehow and get Jeromy, Artem and JoshGitlin in too, but it's literally all over the place.

Steven Jeuris

The time zone thing does have big advantages moderation wise.

They can handle flags when I'm not around and vice versa. ;p

Christian Hummeluhr

Yeah

Christian Hummeluhr

6:11 PM

@Josh Can I get you to repost your voting strategy as an answer here? meta.cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/999/voting-strategies (or should I just do it?)

Krysta

Back and catching up!

. . . all by myself (-:

Meta Cognition

1

Q: Voting strategies

We've talked a lot about closure lately, but at the end of the day, active voting is the most important assumption behind how the Stack Exchange network works. SE sites breathe votes and reputation: Good questions and answers are supposed to be upvoted, while poor questions and answers are suppos...

discussion

Christian Hummeluhr

i'm here

just writing meta posts!

Christian Hummeluhr

6:30 PM

@Krysta >I find myself irrationally reluctant to downvote things when my own rep ends in 0, but a bad enough question/answer can always overrule that.

Thank God I'm not the only one.

Krysta

7:29 PM

Hah! No, youo're not.

Steven Jeuris

9:06 PM

@ChristianHummeluhr Haha! We've all been there. ;p Believe you can still down vote questions though.

Or was it answers .... one of the two doesn't result in negative rep.

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