The Nineteenth Byte

@ChartZBelatedly "How long should I leave a draft in the Sandbox?" With the level of feedback activity we've seen here lately, I'd bump that to a week.

Redwolf Programs

@user I mean regardless of whether people consider closing as unclear to be rude or not, it's useful for new users to know that it's not permanent, and how to get it reopened

ChartZ Belatedly

4:00 PM

@user Oh yeah, I want to get approval from others on all of it before posting

Adám

Code golf is never in a rush. If you need an answer NOW, you're no the wrong site.

ChartZ Belatedly

@Adám Smart, good call

user

@RedwolfPrograms Yeah, that second part is important, but the first one seems to still be debated.

Adám

@ChartZBelatedly "verious"‽

ChartZ Belatedly

@user For the first bit, informing people exactly what closing is should make it feel less rude

@Adám Is that not how you spell "various"? :P

> The Nineteeth Byte

Not a bad typo TBH :P

Adám

4:10 PM

@ChartZBelatedly Other than those, I think it is very good. Thank you for all your efforts. Now, how do we actually get newbies to look at those?

Razetime

track their facebook account and spam their dms

Wezl

@Adám add a small circle in the bottom-right corner that pops up every few seconds

or put it in the center so it's more visible

Razetime

add flashing text in the middle of the screen that cannot be removed in the main page

ChartZ Belatedly

@Adám Until we get SE to allow us to show links to this post on every step of the way towards interacting with the site, we just leave comments below new users' posts and hope they see it

user

Add it to the Tour page somehow

ChartZ Belatedly

4:12 PM

Adding it into the info box would be helpful

Redwolf Programs

I wish the modal was more cutomizable

user

Is the modal the thing on the right called that comes up while you're writing a challenge?

Redwolf Programs

Right now we can't even get rid of the misleading parts like "research beforehand"

@user Yeah, esp. for new users

ChartZ Belatedly

@RedwolfPrograms I wish we knew if it were more customisable or not :/

Redwolf Programs

I know the modal isn't

Razetime

4:13 PM

the normal way would be meta post and have a bot auto comment on first posts/new contributor posts

ChartZ Belatedly

I think we need to kidnap an SE employee, hold them hostage in this room for an hour or so and go "Here are our demands"

Redwolf Programs

@Razetime That's what we're for

user

How does Puzzling SE handle this?

Redwolf Programs

They don't

Adám

This is what the site looks like for a newcomer:

user

4:14 PM

@ChartZBelatedly SE could just cut that employee loose.

ChartZ Belatedly

@user They don't get coding questions

Adám

If we could only get half of that useless banner…

Redwolf Programs

user

@RedwolfPrograms This is useless.

ChartZ Belatedly

@user Honestly, at this point, it wouldn't surprise me if SE decided to fire the employee rather than work with the community in that scenario

Redwolf Programs

4:15 PM

@RedwolfPrograms This is awful advice for anyone on this site

Adám

@user No, it is counter-productive.

user

@ChartZBelatedly That's a fair point.

Wezl

post code golf questions on SO meta?

Redwolf Programs

"Provide ... any research" and "[D]escribe what you've tried" are actively harmful

Adám

@Wezl Revenge posting… sweet.

Redwolf Programs

4:16 PM

But the numbered things aren't even customizable, all we can do is insert a paragraph before them

user

@Wezl I know you're kidding, but it's not very fair to SO. It gets enough garbage as it is.

Adám

SE was never built for non Q&A or non-programming communities.

ChartZ Belatedly

Not criticising the mods by any means, but if I had access to the Teacher's Lounge and therefore SE employees, I'd be pinging them relentlessly about all our efforts to help new users

3

Redwolf Programs

I don't know about non-programming, but non-Q&A for sure

Wezl

@user right, it's not their fault

Adám

4:17 PM

@RedwolfPrograms Did you not see the stupid cookie-cutter guides?

user

Anything without objective answers and stuff you could research

ChartZ Belatedly

@Wezl That's how this site was born :P

user

The code golf tag

Adám

@RedwolfPrograms Read from here and down.

user

@Adám Huh? What is that even supposed to mean, outside of SO?

Redwolf Programs

4:19 PM

I hate when my employees get frustrated because I send them to CGCC for internal workplace issues :p

user

Did they just blindly make that page for each site and just insert the site's name in there without checking? Or have they forgotten that this page exists?

Adám

@user Just a clear indicate that SE barely even considers any other sites than SO "the real deal".

ChartZ Belatedly

The thing I don't get is: SE has been criticised repeatedly over the past 2 years as many have seen their changes as "pandering to new users" rather than the dedicated user base. Yet when a site tries to make things easier for newer users, they ignore us. When a site tries to fix a *crucial* bug that makes the site worse for everyone but *especially new users*, they turn around and say "Oh, we'll put that on the list for our next bug sprint" when *this* bug sprint was *specifically* about fixing bugs that negatively affect new users

Redwolf Programs

I mean they aren't trying to help new users to be nice. It's because they don't like people leaving to go to Reddit and/or criticize SO

Adám

@ChartZBelatedly "a site" i.e. not SO, so they don't care.

user

4:22 PM

Is SO where they make the most money, then?

Adám

Think about it, they even considered merging SU etc. into SO.

@user No, it is where they make all their money (other than SO Teams).

user

@Adám I thought Super Users was separated from SO

ChartZ Belatedly

But they do care when people not on SE complain that IPS has "inappropriate questions"

Adám

There are only 3rd party ads on SO.

@user The community protested. Loudly.

user

@Adám Guess it makes sense, then ⍨

Adám

4:23 PM

@ChartZBelatedly Because it shows up on HNQ and scares away SO users.

ChartZ Belatedly

They only care if something makes them look bad, and they turn around and say "Look, we want to make it better for new users"

Adám

@ChartZBelatedly TBF, it is a for-profit org. They have one goal: Make money for the shareholders. You can't really blame them for trying to do that to the best of their ability. However, for-profit and community building doesn't go hand-in-hand. Community building requires sacrifices.

user

According to this, the welcome modal for new askers, the "Draft your question" sidebar, and the warning text when reviewing a question are all customizable.

ChartZ Belatedly

It's how they've reacted to easily fixable issues that's the most telling

rak1507

if only there was an alternative! oh wait, there is! but no one uses it!

user

4:27 PM

Oh, never mind, those seem to have already been customized

ChartZ Belatedly

It would've lost them exactly 0 profit margin to turn around and say "Sorry Monica. We screwed up and we're happy to reinstate you if you want". Or "Fair enough, animated ads are intrusive. We'll require our ads to be static". Or so many other controversies

user

@rak1507 Codidact?

rak1507

yes

ChartZ Belatedly

I've tried Codidact, but I never really jived with it :/

rak1507

why not

user

4:28 PM

No green userscript?

Redwolf Programs

It's blocked on my school's network

ChartZ Belatedly

Idk, I just didn't like the whole "vibe"

Which is stupid, but it probably means there's another reason that I just can't verbalise

user

@ChartZBelatedly The commuinty isn't nice?

Adám

TopAnswers has lots of customisations made just for us.

ChartZ Belatedly

@user More that there isn't one in the first place

Redwolf Programs

4:29 PM

The visual design is bad, IMO

rak1507

yeah because people from here refuse to try it

Adám

Including the inability to "just post" challenges without review.

user

@Adám And it looks like you can use MD in comments, but the UI is so ugly :(

Redwolf Programs

Good UI/UX is not optional.

rak1507

the codidact ui is like, identical to the SE one as far as I care

Redwolf Programs

4:30 PM

The font is almost comic-sans level

rak1507

you can post challenges, answer challenges, vote on them

what more do you want

Adám

@user They are quite quick at fixing it if you come with constructive feedback. Usually 6-8 hours for easy things, and 6-8 days for harder things.

ChartZ Belatedly

That is a significant pro of SE, it has >10 years of experience behind it

Adám

@RedwolfPrograms Where?

Wezl

@rak1507 to do that out of a web browser

Redwolf Programs

4:31 PM

Mostly the headings and tags and stuff

rak1507

SE will never fix itself, but people continue to use it

for no good reason imo

Adám

@RedwolfPrograms No, I mean which site?

Redwolf Programs

The code golf one

Wezl

@Wezl not that SE has that, but I want it

rak1507

there are alternatives just everyone's trying pointlessly to make SE work, which it never will

user

4:31 PM

@Adám That time frame sounds suspiciously like SE's own estimates (although here it's more like 6-8 months), but I think I'll try it

Redwolf Programs

This just looks janky

rak1507

If you don't like the font, use a custom one

Adám

@RedwolfPrograms Oh, not TA.

rak1507

cosmetic issues are just about the least important thing ever to me so I can't really relate to not wanting to use a clearly superior alternative just because you don't like the font

Razetime

TopAnswers is cool

ChartZ Belatedly

4:32 PM

Axtell looked to be a good alternative, but Mego and Downgoat stopped dev :(

Razetime

not a fan of the strange login system

Adám

@Razetime I just stay logged in.

Redwolf Programs

The main reason I stick with CGCC is the history and number of challenges and answers, and the time I've invested into this community

user

I still hate the TopAnswers UI and I don't know how to use TeX, but I think I'm going to join just for the Marathi TeX site.

ChartZ Belatedly

TopAnswers and Codidact both suffer from the "network" issue that SE has. If a single community wants a feature that no other community wants/needs, it's unlikely to get it

@RedwolfPrograms I know that's a logical fallacy, but same :/

Razetime

4:34 PM

@ChartZBelatedly the good thing is, you can add it in yourself

Adám

@ChartZBelatedly That's simply not true. TA has added plenty of custom features for the two sites I was involved in starting.

ChartZ Belatedly

Not too familiar with TA tbh, but when Monica was in the discord TNB discussing opening the Code Golf Codidact, a lot of the "can we have X?" questions were answered with "We can try, but no guarantees"

Which is better than SE, but Axtell (or a lone site) would just go "Yeah sure" or "No, that wouldn't be helpful"

Adám

@ChartZBelatedly Whereas with TA, they asked what custom features we'd want.

ChartZ Belatedly

@Adám So did Codidact, but the responses were generally pretty lukewarm

Adám

@ChartZBelatedly So far, I've gotten everything on TA I asked for, except those where my folks were to blame for the lack of API. See here.

ChartZ Belatedly

4:38 PM

"Can we have builtin answer leaderboards?" "Well, we'll have a look into that, but I'm not sure its going to happen"

Adám

These are pretty big feature requests.

Redwolf Programs

I'd prefer a standalone site over being part of another network.

2

Adám

@ChartZBelatedly Done on TA.

Redwolf Programs

The problem is, if any of these networks do grow, they'll probably end up in the same situation and be unable to listen to one different site's needs

Adám

Custom on-screen keyboard, TIO integration, custom fonts…

rak1507

4:40 PM

@RedwolfPrograms perfect is the enemy of good

Redwolf Programs

And "it's good for now but eventually it won't be" is the same as "it was good for a while but now it isn't"

ChartZ Belatedly

@rak1507 We can still aim for better though

rak1507

no one is though

the attitude isn't 'that's good but we can do better' it's 'we could hypothetically do better, so in the mean time lets stick with the worst possible option'

ChartZ Belatedly

We're trying, SE isn't

rak1507

try to leave SE then

ChartZ Belatedly

4:43 PM

Why? Why not try to get SE to?

rak1507

because that is futile

ChartZ Belatedly

I suppose I'm a masochist at heart :P

2

If something's "futile", it's all the more to try to do it :P

3

user

Is there an "Area 51" for TopAnswers?

Adám

@user Not an automated one. You post on Meta that you want a community about such and such, then they create a closed beta community which you can experiment with and customise, and then when you tell them to launch, they do.

Razetime

ok wow topanswers is great

user

4:46 PM

@Adám Oh cool

Razetime

Maybe I'll make a userstyle to tidy up the layout

user

Hopefully, the UX will be improved eventually

Adám

@Razetime Or even better, post a mock-up on meta and they might make it so.

The devs admit they don't know UX.

Razetime

wow ok

Adám

@Razetime I did, and they did.

Redwolf Programs

4:47 PM

Run any UX ideas by me if you want, I'm really good at complaining about things that are very slightly misaligned :p

Razetime

just go ahead and post a mockup

Adám

My design proposal.

rak1507

how do you sort posts on topanswers by date? (newest first)

user

Or by stars, or activity, or other criteria?

Adám

I don't know (if it is possible yet). Ping Jack Douglas and ask.

ChartZ Belatedly

4:57 PM

@user202729 Have you seen/heard of the Sandbox viewer?

Haha, I just visited NSP's chat profile for the first time :D

Redwolf Programs

I didn't even know they had profiles :p

user

@rak1507 I've started a bounty, but I think I may have been too ambitious at first, so I'm lowering the amounts (for future answers, not for yours)

rak1507

oh, you could lower mine too if you want, I don't mind

user

@rak1507 It's all right, I'm not giving you the full 500 anyway :P

rak1507

alright

Redwolf Programs

5:05 PM

CMQ: Should king-of-the-hill be capitalized as Koth, KotH, KoTH, or KOTH?

rak1507

neither, it should be koth for maximum ease of typing

ChartZ Belatedly

KotH

user

@RedwolfPrograms KH

Redwolf Programs

Don't know why I started writing KoTH, it's a habit now :/

ChartZ Belatedly

@RedwolfPrograms None, it should be ruler-of-the-elevated-terrain

Redwolf Programs

5:06 PM

RotET or RoTET, though? :p

ChartZ Belatedly

rOtEt

user

RoTaTe

ChartZ Belatedly

rotET as it has elevated and non-elevated terrain :P

Redwolf Programs

KotH has a nice symmetry about it, I'll use that one

Or maybe kOTh

ChartZ Belatedly

@RedwolfPrograms That's cursed

user

5:09 PM

KH has symmetry too (and can be reflected over the x-axis)

Redwolf Programs

Yeah, but KH isn't as instantly recognizable as "King of the Hill"

user

Kot∧

Redwolf Programs

👑 of the ⛰️

user

@RedwolfPrograms It's also instantly recognizable as "King of the Hill," so I think this should be the only accepted version.

ChartZ Belatedly

Lemme just suggest [tag:👑-of-the-⛰️] as a synonym of king-of-the-hill :P

user

5:13 PM

@ChartZBelatedly Aw, SE doesn't allow Unicode in tags ⍨

ChartZ Belatedly

@user I hope they do allow Unicode in tags :P

Letters are part of Unicode :P

Newly Featured Questions

12

Q: Solve a 2x2 Eigensystem

For those with a little linear algebra background, the challenge is as simple as this: determine the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a given complex 2x2 matrix. You may skip ahead to The Challenge for I/O details, etc. For those who need a little refresher on eigensystems, read on. Background T...

user

Time for code-golf and code-bowling to be merged into [tag:] :P

Redwolf Programs

Looks like tags don't accept unicode so we'll have to do u1f451udc51-of-the-u26f0ufe0f

(Sorry for the delay took a while to figure out the multi-codepoint stuff)

user

@RedwolfPrograms Lemme suggest that as a tag synonym :P

ChartZ Belatedly

5:22 PM

Updated draft of the new users guide

user

@ChartZBelatedly This is a minor thing, but "Languages such as Java are never going to be able to compete with languages designed for golfing" feels a bit discouraging to me. Would it be possible to remove that (or rephrase it)?

New Main Posts

0

Q: Card Rearrangement Chains

For this contest we are playing with cards. To set up the game, we begin by placing 52 cards in a line, face down. The goal is ultimately to arrange the cards (string of numbers each separated by a single space) in ascending order (0, 1, 2, ..., 51) by performing a "rearrangement cycle". Then, ou...

code-golf math array-manipulation permutations

user

Also, "You may think its funny" (for the standard loopholes part) sounds somewhat condescending, even though you probably didn't mean it like that. (nitpick: "its" should be "it's")

ChartZ Belatedly

@user How about "Languages such as Java are generally going to be more competitive with similar languages (e.g. C#) rather than with golfing languages"?

Anush

5:43 PM

anyone explored my CMC?

Luis Mendo

@user202729 Yes, I think it's clear enough now. I removed my downvote

ChartZ Belatedly

@user Changed to "They were funny in 2011, but the site now strives towards good quality answers."

Anush

in case it got lost. CMC can you find an n so that you can partition the n+1 binomial coefficients \binom{n}{i} into four subsets with equal sums?

rak1507

@ChartZBelatedly does it tho

ChartZ Belatedly

@rak1507 No Yeah, I'd say we do

rak1507

5:58 PM

not sure I agree

ChartZ Belatedly

We encourage explanations and we delete invalid answers :P

@ChartZBelatedly 0.482, I'm getting close to 0.5 :D

rak1507

@Anush bruteforce hasn't found anything under n=103

oh oops just realised I misread the question

New Main Posts

6:17 PM

2

Q: What's the odd one out?

You are to write a program which outputs a single positive integer \$n\$. The integer may have leading zeros and whitespace, and/or trailing whitespace. Then, choose a positive integer \$m > 1\$. When the program is repeated exactly \$m\$ times, it should output \$m \times n\$ (and only \$m\times...

code-golf source-layout

Monica Cellio

6:34 PM

@ChartZBelatedly I'm sorry you came away with a negative impression. I'm not one of the developers so I can't make promises on their behalf, but when I say we'll look into something I mean it -- but "we", i.e. I can't answer authoritatively on my own. (Ok sometimes I can, but this wasn't such a case.) We did implement the answer TOC -- just needed to work out how to integrate it. And we've done one-offs for other communities.

The Judaism community has a citation linker that's specific to Jewish texts, for instance.

We're happy to work with communities on the things they need. We don't always know what those needs are in advance, so it's not surprising that there's a time gap between the request and the delivery. We're trying hard to serve our communities. And so is TopAnswers; the devs there are great at responding to bug reports and requests. Both projects have much smaller teams than SE (not that SE pays much attention to its communities and users).

Anyway, if there's something you want on Codidact, please let us know. You can use main meta, the per-community metas, GitHub issues, Discord -- even pull requests, depending. :-) Please let us know how we can help you have a better experience. We might not always be able to deliver quickly, but we do try our best do do what's best for our communities.

4

ChartZ Belatedly

@MonicaCellio It wasn't so much a negative impression as I'm happy enough using SE that Codidact didn't really incentivise me enough to leave. Other people may disagree, and how SE treated you was disgusting enough that I seriously considered leaving, but ultimately, there's nothing particular that Codidact (or any other site) could do at the moment to convince me to leave SE - I reckon that if/when I ever do stop using this site, it'll either be my interest in code golf has died off, or (cont).

(cont). or SE finally does something that means I cannot, under any circumstances, justify staying. In that case, perhaps I will move to Codidact or TopAnswers, I can't say RN

rak1507

why are you so attached to se?

ChartZ Belatedly

@rak1507 I've invested almost 4 years of time into it to start

Monica Cellio

Thanks for explaining. Obviously lots of people are still attached to SE and I'm not trying to interfere with that. Neither Codidact nor TopAnswers is an SE clone; we're trying to do different things. We've learned a lot in the last decade+ from SE, what it did well and what it did poorly. Why just make a copy? Learn and improve and grow -- that's our goal.

rak1507

@ChartZBelatedly going to a different site doesn't diminish the effort people put in on SE

Monica Cellio

6:43 PM

Looking back, I ignored warning signs that SE was becoming inhospitable to small or "fringe" communities because I was too attached. Sunk costs can be deceptive.

ChartZ Belatedly

@rak1507 Plus, given how little SE interacts with this little corner of the internet, at times, CGCC doesn't feel like part of SE to me

5

rak1507

I agree, cgcc feels totally unrelated to SE so it's weird to me for people to stick to it so much

ChartZ Belatedly

@MonicaCellio I hope that I'm not saying the same thing in a few years time, but I guess we'll have to see :/

@rak1507 No, but it feels like erasing what I've done. My favourite thing that was implemented into Axtell is that you could transfer questions, answers and accounts across from SE, so it didn't feel like I was jumping ship, just moving to a better place

Monica Cellio

@ChartZBelatedly I hope that if you do find yourself saying it, it isn't because you got hurt in the process. I really should have taken a bigger warning from the HNQ mess (ignore users but bow and scrape before one twitter user). They said reassuring things after. They didn't mean them. Learned that later. :-(

@ChartZBelatedly When Codidact launched Writing, its first community, we were treating it as sort of an emergency evacuation because SE had killed the community here. (Top users were deleting their accounts, that sort of thing -- if we didn't do something quickly we were going to lose the ability to reach people.) We imported almost all the content. A year later we're deleting a lot of it -- indiscriminate import turned out badly, but I think there's a place for selective import.

TopAnswers has a tool where you can import individual questions. I'd like to have something like that for Codidact (don't yet).

Bulk import made us look like a scraper. The new content wasn't visible enough against that.

ChartZ Belatedly

@MonicaCellio Yeah, changing communities in a way which perfectly straddles the line is difficult, and I applaud Codidact and TA for putting in genuine efforts to do it well

Monica Cellio

6:50 PM

Even in setting up the new community on Codidact, I was still in "sunk costs" mode -- thinking in terms of rescuing the stuff, when encouraging the people to try something new was more important.

rak1507

@ChartZBelatedly I don't really have a good response to that considering nothing will really convince you that moving doesn't invalidate your efforts

Monica Cellio

I hope golfers will go wherever you have good experiences -- SE, Codidact, TopAnswers. You don't have to choose one. The platforms are different from each other but it's the people who really matter. I hope y'all will give Codidact a try. I hope you'll give TopAnswers a try too. On both Codidact and TA, I know the teams want to work together with the communities.

@ChartZBelatedly I hated to leave my large body of work behind on Mi Yodeya (and some other communities). But y'know what? It's still there. I can see it any time I want. I can adapt it and improve it on Codidact and TopAnswers (I've done both). I haven't lost it.

Wezl

I'll join TA when the sign-up works in lynx :)

this is the user experience, with most of the space taken by images (ofc it's probably not a priority or not even possible to support me, but I'd be thankful)

ChartZ Belatedly

@rak1507 I know that it doesn't actually erase or invalidate the work I've done here. But it feels like it does. Just in numbers alone, I've got more edits than all but 3 users, I'm one of a few people to have multiple rare badges, I've worked towards getting 25k since the privilege levels changed. I don't do this because it "helps SE", I do it because I enjoy this site, and by doing these I can better help this site improve. (cont).

(cont). SE has done some awful (and potentially illegal) things, not just to Monica, but to a lot of us. But I don't put it work and time and effort for SE, I put it in for myself and for the site. Moving to Codidact, Axtell, TA, wherever, I'd have to start that work over. Sure, my contributions here will always be here, but given what's behind me (and what I'm still working towards), that isn't much consolation.

Maybe once I've got every badge there is to get I'll be satisfied, and I'll move, but I enjoy it here and, despite seriously considering it multiple times, I don't want to leave just yet

@MonicaCellio Thank you for being willing to put in the work to help Codidact. Without your advertising and promotion for it, I doubt that a lot of users who want to leave SE would've found a community that they'd enjoy :)

Anyway, I have food going cold, so \o y'all

Wezl

7:05 PM

Great! it looks like codidact is usable without JS!

Monica Cellio

@ChartZBelatedly building a new community -- and migrating people from one place to another is still "building new" -- requires help from lots of folks. Each of us does the part we can do, and we hope for good results. I can't help personally with the content on half our communities (CG, EE, Physics...). I can listen and encourage and try to connect people and ask questions until I understand the needs. Others build tools. Others have the connections to reach new participants. It all adds up.

@ChartZBelatedly wave Food at the right temperature is important. :-)

@Wezl we try. There are some things that are better with JS, but we aim for basic functionality even without, and we've got some users who keep JS off so we hear about it if we miss something.

Anush

@rak1507 have you got code working now?

rak1507

@Anush not any good code

Anush

7:25 PM

@rak1507 what n can you get up to?

Mithical

7:38 PM

@ChartZBelatedly It's also possible to contribute to more than one site at the same time... I'm active both places, for instance

(also hello, I don't think I've been in here for like... three years)

Adám

@Mithical Welcome back. And I'm (kind of) active on all three.

rak1507

9:28 PM

Is there a way to set ⎕IO in jelly?

(just spent far too long wondering why it wasn't working...)

Adám

@rak1507 Nope, fixed at 1

rak1507

oh well

Adám

Fixed suboptimal is better than settable, no?

rak1507

for a real language, yes

rak1507

9:44 PM

is it bad form answering the same question twice in two different languages? I have a jelly answer to this codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/220454/…

Redwolf Programs

I don't see why it would be, go ahead :p

I mean if you post a dozen trivial answers to a question it probably would be, but two or three quality answers it fine

rak1507

caird will probably instantly tell me I can knock off 2-3 bytes

the fact I have two €s in there makes me worried

ah, it appears my code gave the right answer for the wrong reasons, hmm... doesn't look like there's anything like dfns.traj unfortunately