The Nineteenth Byte

8:00 PM

I thought the Hello World feed would also help us find new answers by new users that may not be done well enough (although there's a review queue for that, I guess)

pxeger

@hyper-neutrino I care enough about not caring that I downvoted the question :þ

hyper-neutrino

lol

user

At least be sincere about your apathy

StackMeter

@pxeger here's a little lesson in trickery

Question: I have an idea for a question - print all the named oxygen compounds, as found on Wikipedia. Yea or nay?

hyper-neutrino

(sandbox it :p) do you have a list

Adám

8:06 PM

Sounds like a boring KC to me.

hyper-neutrino

^

user

^ What does it offer over existing kolmogorov complexity challenges? I don't see how they're easily compressible or something

StackMeter

@hyper-neutrino no

hyper-neutrino

in general the answer to "should I make this KC challenge" is probably "no" and occasionally if there's some interesting compressability to it then maybe

StackMeter

I couldn't even write to files until yesterday at 23:45

@hyper-neutrino the internet is allowed for this one

user

8:07 PM

What changed then?

StackMeter

it means you don't have to hardcode the string

(s)

hyper-neutrino

most KC challenges either fall into a) english and thus can be compressed by languages with dictionary compression, b) a lot of repeated tokens and thus can be compressed with a simple substitution approach which each language does pretty much the same way, or c) have no compression and therefore bubblegum just wins

caird coinheringaahing

@pxeger Personally, I'd be more than happy to just start it and stop if we don't want it. But, given that there has been pushback to it, I've been trying to get a better gauge of whether people would want it or not, as I don't want to impose my own opinions on the chatroom

hyper-neutrino

@StackMeter well, you'll have to provide a list, in which case you could just scrape that list, in which case that sounds like a dupe

StackMeter

so basically no KC

ghhgtgg

sorry, just trying to get a piece of fluff out of my computer

hyper-neutrino

8:09 PM

well no, the point was just that a lot happen to not be particularly interesting

caird coinheringaahing

Plus, there's disagreement about ticker vs message feed, and I especially don't want to have to mess around with the feed if we did have it

hyper-neutrino

@StackMeter then don't do that over the chat window

also keep in mind that adding message feeds results in a ton of spam because SE feeds suck

StackMeter

@hyper-neutrino sorry, it was the thing I had open

hyper-neutrino

@StackMeter well no, the point was that if you're going to make one, it needs to have something interesting to it

StackMeter

ok

hyper-neutrino

8:11 PM

if we all posted KC of "output this script" or "output those lyrics" we could come up with a challenge every 30 seconds and they'd all be equally boring

for example, recently a "output the bee movie script" challenge was posted and was hammered into "output the lyrics to rickroll" because they both fit into category a) that i mentioned and won't really offer anything new

StackMeter

@hyper-neutrino fair enough

rickroll was better anyway

caird coinheringaahing

@hyper-neutrino But also, the methods used in the rickroll are completely generalisable for any text

That's the important bit that so many people miss in the argument about closing most KCs as rickroll dupes - unless there is obvious compressible patterns, the rickroll methods are 100% generalisable and like 95% optimal

hyper-neutrino

yeah

my output titin challenge is an example of something that isn't a rickroll dupe tho, despite people trying to close it as such, lol. it really wasn't interesting and I'm sad that it's my most upvoted challenge but the compression there is totally different lol

StackMeter

@hyper-neutrino 62 upvotes how lol

hyper-neutrino

that's not even particularly exceptional

StackMeter

8:16 PM

@hyper-neutrino keep in mind my best question has 9, and my best answer has 6

don't concatenate those

caird coinheringaahing

TBF our favourite challenges are rarely our highest voted

StackMeter

we all got that joke before you even wrote it

hyper-neutrino

right, but you also haven't posted that much, and our community is not nearly as active anymore. also our most highly voted challenges are actually kinda old and underspecified TBH

StackMeter

@hyper-neutrino fair enough

I've posted 30-ish things

caird coinheringaahing

Tbf 30 isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things

StackMeter

8:17 PM

the community still exists though, as evidenced by the 10 or so answers on a new question

need to get those numbers up

caird coinheringaahing

@StackMeter yeah, but it used to be insanely active. We're recovering from the loss of users from 2018-2020, but slowly

hyper-neutrino

well it's still indisputably much smaller than we used to be

user

@mods btw should I continue flagging posts on Meta? Am I posting too many low-quality flags at once?

hyper-neutrino

@user your flags look pretty good. they give a suggested action and an explanation / where I can look for why you made that call, which is quite helpful. you can continue with that :)

also @mods doesn't ping (i'm sure you knew that). you may as well just ping me TBH :P

user

That's good, just making sure I'm not doing anything wrong

@hyper-neutrino @hyper-neutrino @hyper-neutrino ping ping ping ping ping >:)

hyper-neutrino

8:31 PM

*hovers over the 11 button*

A username

9:00 PM

Guys, apparently my first name's A

@hyper-neutrino My million-byte deadfish answer almost certainly lost :P

CMQ: How do you pronounce 'pxeger'?

user

@Ausername Hi there, "A"! I saw your cousin The just the other day :P

A username

Lol

user

@Ausername puck-say-gur

A username

pick-seg-eur

user

9:15 PM

@Ausername pxeger's answer to "The many users of CGCC"

A username

pʰə̆ɡsɛˈgə? I give up.

user

phaigsege is how I'll pronounce pxeger in my head from now on :P

Perks of not knowing IPA - all spellings look hilarious when spelled using IPA :P

A username

True

caird coinheringaahing

9:31 PM

@Ausername "pecks-er"

A username

Uh...

caird coinheringaahing

I don't pronounce most usernames as they're spelt :P

A username

How do you pronounce 'Lyxal'?

caird coinheringaahing

licks-all

A username

They'd hate you for that./

caird coinheringaahing

9:36 PM

Let them, that's the 100% correct way to pronounce it :P

A username

Likesal not Licks-all.

hyper-neutrino

I also pronounce it "licks-all" except more of an "ull" sound (like in "gull")

caird coinheringaahing

Yeah, the emphasis should be on the "lick" not on the "all"

A username

@lyxal!!!

Redwolf Programs

I pronounce pxeger as puhk-seger, but the uh is so small it sounds like pks is basically one group of consonants

(Sorry for no quotes or code formatting, I'm on mobile)

hyper-neutrino

9:50 PM

I don't actually really have an internal pronunciation of pxeger's name, I just sort of skip over it when formulating thoughts

but if I had to, I'd probably say something like "pseger" because rather than inserting a vowel between the P and K sounds I more or less just skip the K sounds lol

it doesn't make sense but that's how i pronounce it the few times i try to imagine how i'd pronounce it

caird coinheringaahing

I see the "p", "e", "x" and "er" and mix that into "pexer" :P

A username

How do you pronounce 'Adám'?

Note the á.

hyper-neutrino

the way I'd pronounce "adam", because I don't actually know what that accent does

caird coinheringaahing

Like Adam, sometimes like "ah-DAM" (using caps for emphasis)

hyper-neutrino

but since Adám is his real name I should probably learn how to properly pronounce it

A username

9:57 PM

How do you pronounce 'dzaima'?

caird coinheringaahing

"dz-eye-muh"

The "dz" as one "ligature"

hyper-neutrino

^

A username

I can't think of anyone else :P

hyper-neutrino

as pinyin, zai ma (without tones) (since this is one of the few occasions where I can actually use pinyin to describe something i'm pronouncing :p)

caird coinheringaahing

How about I4m2?

hyper-neutrino

10:00 PM

imo there is only one sensible way :p but i may be convinced otherwise

A username

Wait, it's an I? I thought it was an l.

caird coinheringaahing

@hyper-neutrino "eye-four-em-two"? I say "I'm-four"

hyper-neutrino

it is an I, and I copy-pasted it into TIO to check

@cairdcoinheringaahing yeah no offense but i'm going to consider that not a sensible way :D lol

caird coinheringaahing

@hyper-neutrino No offence taken, "hipper-neu-try-no" :P

hyper-neutrino

good to see we're on good terms, "kye-red ko-eye-n-heering-ay-hing" :P

speaking of which what is your "last name" supposed to be pronounced as

i say "cared coin-herring-ah-hing"

Redwolf Programs

10:06 PM

I used to do that

caird coinheringaahing

@hyper-neutrino Same

hyper-neutrino

nice

caird coinheringaahing

@hyper-neutrino It isn't supposed to be pronounced, just observed :P

And cut off by things that don't like long strings

hyper-neutrino

well, I am not even supposed to be observed :P

@cairdcoinheringaahing yeah i have to zoom my chat window down to 90% to see your full name and i like to keep it at 110%

it works fine at 110% zoom when you monologue tho (is that a term for it? when you send enough messages in a row like i am now and it makes your profile picture expand and your name display under instead of beside it)

Luis Mendo

A little off-topic maybe, but I just uploaded a new track to my SoundCloud page

Redwolf Programs

10:20 PM

@hyper-neutrino It's at least the term chat's HTML uses

Any group of messages is .monologue

user

@LuisMendo It's more on-topic than a lot of other stuff posted here :P

Luis Mendo

:-) And at least it's not rick-rolling

user

War on the heathens!

Jun 3 at 20:00, 33 minutes total – 235 messages, 12 users, 20 stars

Bookmarked 2 days ago by user

lyxal

10:53 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing okay carrid coinengineering

@user mmm I would if you actually had profile text

@user you just don't know your memes very well: youtu.be/KgK0g0M4yLM

user

@lyxal That was the joke :P

lyxal

@Ausername there once was another user here named A

user

@lyxal Looked it up right after looking at your profile :P

knowyourmeme is a very useful resource :P

lyxal

@user very good

Making me proud

@Ausername peh gecks er

Which, come to think of it, isn't even close to accurate

Redwolf Programs

Conclusive opinion on having a Hello, World! feed?

5

Welcome to TNB, @jeje!

user

11:09 PM

@RedwolfPrograms No one will dare go against the mod for fear of being 11'd :P

I hate it when you ask a question and no one answers or comments on it immediately. Answers are so much easier

lyxal

@RedwolfPrograms I have a proposal: we use AI to settle it

user

How could that ever go wrong?

Redwolf Programs

We're already handing too much control over to this AI...next it'll be "should we adopt a strike-first nuclear policy? let's ask GPT!"

caird coinheringaahing

There's literally a recent MM discussion about giving bots mod powers, seems like letting computers run the SE network is a hot idea tonight :P

lyxal

@cairdcoinheringaahing admittedly, smokey being able to superping users in regards to invalid flags would be useful

caird coinheringaahing

11:21 PM

Yeah, my objection isn't to the superping :P

user

Bots can fail

lyxal

But you can't have sp without mod powers

caird coinheringaahing

Its with all the other stuff. Think about it: if smokey has mod powers, it can raise and validate its own flags

user

^

lyxal

Only if we tell it to

Redwolf Programs

11:22 PM

^

user

We need humans to confirm what the bots think. There's always false positives

lyxal

The whole point of smokey is that it's human operated

caird coinheringaahing

@lyxal Not normally. Smokey is unique enough to SE that the staff could always give it the ability to superping

Redwolf Programs

@cairdcoinheringaahing That's like saying "if I give my friend a knife, that gives them permission to kill me with it"

lyxal

@user we already do that though

caird coinheringaahing

11:23 PM

@lyxal With a significant of mods, who can superping

lyxal

@cairdcoinheringaahing but what if the mods aren't available

user

@lyxal I know, and we should continue to do that

@lyxal Elect more mods ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Redwolf Programs

I don't see why an existing mod can't just run a script that superpings users for them

That doesn't require a new mod account specifically for the bot

caird coinheringaahing

Mods have incredibly powerful tools. I don't know about you, but I am not at all comfortable with giving those powers to anything other than a user I trust

lyxal

I trust smokey

Redwolf Programs

11:25 PM

^

A tool that can automatically raise large numbers of flags already has incredible power (and trust)

user

But it can't act on those flags

caird coinheringaahing

Yes, and it still has a significant number of things that it can't do, and that's the point

Redwolf Programs

This isn't some rogue AI that's going to use its powers for anything it's theoretically capable of; if it's programmed to only superping, it will only superping.

user

^^

hyper-neutrino

if smokey isn't a mod it won't be able to autoflag lol

caird coinheringaahing

11:27 PM

^

hyper-neutrino

SD, for example, cannot autoflag on CGCC using my account. it will use my account for any other site except this

user

@RedwolfPrograms If all the bot can do is superping, then it'd be okay, I guess. As long as it doesn't use other mod privileges

Redwolf Programs

Which is not what was proposed. Superpinging was all that was needed.

lyxal

The point is that there isn't even consensus within the team question linked in the meta proposal

caird coinheringaahing

I like having bots around, they can be very helpful resources. However, this network isn't for bots, its for people. Bots should be used when needed and only when needed, and humans should handle the rest - and bots should not be given the most powerful tools we have on the network

hyper-neutrino

11:28 PM

I do not at all trust smokey with a diamond. even if the devs all promise to only use it for superpinging. it's just that you now have an all-powerful program (which can make mistakes much more drastic than a human could) and it's hard to hold someone accountable

to put it this way - the bot is the servant of the human, not the other way around

Redwolf Programs

And the humans developing it are already trusted members of the community, right?

hyper-neutrino

granted, it's hard to imagine how a dev could even accidentally abuse mod tools - like, if only superpinging is involved, that's literally a matter of adding another @ and using user.id instead of user.name or something like that

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms I trust you a lot, as virtual trust goes. I voted for you in the RO election, I'd probably vote for you in a mod election if you stood. I don't trust NP/SP with RO powers, let alone a diamond

user

@RedwolfPrograms But those humans' programming skills aren't necessarily trusted

Redwolf Programs

It's hard to accidentally go flag a bunch of stuff with a script written to superping a list of people

hyper-neutrino

11:30 PM

but yeah, ^ + ^^. a mod making a mistake might delete a user by accident. a mod bot coded incorrectly might accidentally start deleting every user

Redwolf Programs

That would be quite the mistake

caird coinheringaahing

Hell, I trust myself more than I trust anyone else, I still wouldn't want to give OSP RO powers and I coded the damn thing

user

@RedwolfPrograms Better safe than sorry

Redwolf Programs

I trust a bot 20x more than a typical user

lyxal

@RedwolfPrograms same

user

11:31 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing See? Even the Dictator of the United States doesn't trust themselves that much :P

hyper-neutrino

if it's only superpinging, sure, that's hard to mess up. but that's a lot of trust to be placing in the bot and all devs. i'm not saying they're not trustworthy to me, but the point stands that you need the trust of the whole network for something like this

user

@RedwolfPrograms Trust a bot to do what?

A username

@RedwolfPrograms Which is why hyper is a good mod.

caird coinheringaahing

But we aren't talking about typical users. We're talking about the 0.00001%

lyxal

@user *director

Redwolf Programs

11:31 PM

@user What it's told

user

@RedwolfPrograms A bot may do what it's told perfectly, but it's not guaranteed to be told the right things. A typo here, a logic error there, and you could end up in a lot of trouble

hyper-neutrino

TBH you know what's a much better solution?

Redwolf Programs

All it takes to superping is sending @@... ... to /messages/.../new, with an fkey and some auth cookies. Making it do anything else would take a ton of work. Not something you can easily do by accident, or even on purpose.

hyper-neutrino

just require people with autoflag to be in the teams and have some sort of notification system within it or something

user

@user However, I do agree that superpings would be hard to mess up, and as long as those bots are tested extensively before being deployed, I'd probably be fine with that

lyxal

11:33 PM

@hyper-neutrino dang

That's clever

hyper-neutrino

like

there's still a chance it'll fail

but there's also a chance people just won't respond to superpings

i superpinged doorknob a couple hundred days ago and to my knowledge he still hasn't visited chat since

lyxal

Nah making autoflaggers join teams is a whole lot better

Bubbler

I guess the problem is that a malicious programmer can always sneak in (or an existing developer turn the side) and insert something malicious

Redwolf Programs

There are two ways a superpinging bot could go wrong: accidents, and malicious behavior. The first is almost impossible.

hyper-neutrino

again, the invalidated autoflag message already just does @{name} so just editing the code to do @@{id} instead isn't particularly prone to error

caird coinheringaahing

11:34 PM

If HN makes a mistake as a mod, I know that I can ping him here and let him know. Or raise a flag and let at least another mod know. Or even, in some cases, I can go back and fix that. At the very least, I know that I have at least one way of reverting any mistakes he might make. I can't know that with a bot, no matter what people say they made the bot do.

Bubbler

somewhat like a bitcoin mining script in a widely used npm package

hyper-neutrino

but keep in mind that you also have to think about what SD already does that might change if it is given mod powers, and what damage could arise from that

Redwolf Programs

Make it a totally different script that handles the pings.

hyper-neutrino

at this point this just sounds like giving a nuke and then thirteen different workarounds and limitations to someone who just wanted a hammer

A username

@Bubbler eventstream, yes.

Redwolf Programs

11:36 PM

To me it sounds like giving someone a hammer and a list of instructions on what to do

hyper-neutrino

The TL has a tool that allows you to summon mods from any site and it seems like it has the ability to superping / send an inbox notification (it doesn't even actually leave an @@<id> message in chat) - this may be possible to implement elsewhere, and would certainly be a much better idea than handing over a diamond just to notify people. — hyper-neutrino 10 mins ago

Redwolf Programs

Then getting worried they'll suddenly decide to kill you with it

caird coinheringaahing

@hyper-neutrino "Here's a nuke. This is the button to launch it, and here's the glass cover over that button. Here's the hammer you'll be using to knock in these nails"

But also, doesn't Smokey require you to sign up to flag in the first place? So, like HN said, just require them to be part of the Team

Redwolf Programs

Has anyone else here written a low-level implementation of a chat bot? It's not easy to do even simple things. Accidentally doing something like deleting a user is almost certain to require extensive debugging, not something a mistyped number could do.

lyxal

Here's my final thought on this: if they won't let you use GPT-3 with a bit, why should we let a chat bot have mod powers?

hyper-neutrino

11:38 PM

4 mins ago, by Bubbler

I guess the problem is that a malicious programmer can always sneak in (or an existing developer turn the side) and insert something malicious

I still think this is important to consider

Redwolf Programs

That'd be my only concern

user

Even if the entire community verifies it, there's always the chance of something slipping in. I don't think we should risk that

Redwolf Programs

But the script shouldn't need to change, and I think it should be run on the mod's computer rather than whatever hosts any bots

A username

@hyper-neutrino Who? If Redwolf could've done that, they would've done already.

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms If its being run on a mods computer rather than like, by SE, then extra no

Redwolf Programs

11:39 PM

@Ausername ?

@cairdcoinheringaahing Why?

caird coinheringaahing

That's like so much easier and open to exploits

A username

@cairdcoinheringaahing We trust hyper, right?

Redwolf Programs

@Ausername This is just hypothetical

A username

Yes

caird coinheringaahing

@Ausername Yes, I trust hyper

Redwolf Programs

11:41 PM

If I make a bot that uses my account to do something malicious, I'm still accountable. A mod doing that is exactly the same.

A username

How does superpinging work anyway?

Redwolf Programs

A bot with mod privs can do incredible damage, but if the mod wants to do that they could write the bot themselves anyway.

Deleting a user on main is likely much easier than anything tangentially related to chat to automate.

caird coinheringaahing

@Ausername @@id pings the user with that chat id, whether they can be "pinged" or not. Also bypasses the 15 minute wait to the main inbox

Redwolf Programs

I trust the moderators.

A username

So only for very important situations.

@RedwolfPrograms Ye

caird coinheringaahing

11:43 PM

But as soon as you give it the tools, whether they're supposed to even be used or not, you've opened that can of worms

Redwolf Programs

If it's a script written and run by a moderator, without anyone else being able to modify the code, that removes any potential for malicious behavior IMO.

@cairdcoinheringaahing A bot is not an AI. It does what it's told.

It's not going to randomly decide to delete a user, flag a post, or leak moderator-only information.

caird coinheringaahing

SE got hacked 2 years ago, where a new user managed to get developer privileges. You think that no-one is going to be able to hack a mod-Charcoal to make bad things happen?

hyper-neutrino

to this date, moderators have always been "the people trusted by the community and SE to represent both to each other and maintain a safe environment and uphold community policies". even if we know the bot can only possibly superping, giving a diamond to a bot to grant it one of the weakest privileges we have access to, is honestly dangerously close to,

if not directly yet another violation of trust by SE towards its community, saying that we now have a script controlling and account granted the highest level of trust and privilege that's only supposed to be given to people that the community trusts

caird coinheringaahing

^

Redwolf Programs

I'm not suggesting a mod account specifically meant to be a bot

A username

11:45 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing link plz?

Redwolf Programs

That was never something I was arguing for

My suggestion was having an existing mod run a script using their account.

Neil

Apparently I live in the world's biggest tax haven

caird coinheringaahing

It's less about what the bot could do, being realistic, and more about what it says, allowing an automated system to have these exclusive powers that represent the ultimate trust

@Ausername Link

lyxal

@Neil know any good local banks?

Redwolf Programs

@cairdcoinheringaahing I don't think that's significant enough to matter, SD already has a ton of power in theory, superpinging hardly seems like much next to it

A username

11:47 PM

lyxal

@Ausername wow, imagine using imgflip

hyper-neutrino

honestly, thing to consider - charcoal itself doesn't even want this

makyen has made it quite clear that this idea is not only not endorsed by charcoal, but that the team actively rejects this proposal and does not wish for it to be implemented

lyxal

22 mins ago, by lyxal

The point is that there isn't even consensus within the team question linked in the meta proposal

user

@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog I understand that you thought it might be useful, but don't drag us into it. The way you've presented this, it sounds like Charcoal is seriously considering, or at least discussed internally and thought it might be useful to have SmokeDetector have moderator privileges, at least in chat. Charcoal DOES NOT want SmokeDetector to have moderator capabilities. The possibility was not brought up on the question you link. Any time the possibility has been mentioned in passing in other discussions it has always been immediately shot down by us. — Makyen 3 mins ago

(emphasis not mine)

Redwolf Programs

Right. I'm just saying I don't see anything wrong with the idea, hypothetically, as long as it's implemented well.

Compared to bots, humans are dangerously unpredictable and shouldn't have nearly as much power :p

user

11:55 PM

That's why unpredictable humans aren't elected mods

A username

@RedwolfPrograms It would've been perfect if you had logged into NMP and messaged "That's what you think" just then

user

We only elect predictable AIs pretending to be humans as mods, such as hyper-neutrino :P

A username

@lyxal Try running this discussion throught GPT-3 pls?

hyper-neutrino

TBH i personally more or less subscribe to the belief that a user shouldn't be given more power than necessary

user

@RedwolfPrograms Your proposal of a mod running a userscript sounds somewhat better than making a new bot with mod powers, since it both doesn't have the same significance and lets someone be responsible

hyper-neutrino

11:57 PM

since the discussion is about giving smokey superpings, giving them a whole suite of mod tools to go with it is at the very least entirely unnecessary

user

@hyper-neutrino What do you have against me? :( (but seriously, I agree)

Could SE make an exception just for Smokey and let it superping?

hyper-neutrino

it's possible, I suppose. and a much better idea than this would be

lyxal

@Ausername convert to a nice format and I will

A username

Ok

user

@lyxal Chat doesn't generate transcripts for you? :/

War on the heathens!

Transcript for