If anyone was waiting for a solid opponent before bothering to engage with Speed Clue KotH, wait no more. Against a field of two random AIs and three of my simple AI, the typical outcome is that this bot wins on turn 6.

@PeterTaylor TOH: Double-Prime, using tagged Gödel numbers ... somehow.

IMHO Brainfuck should be called "teeny-tiny-6-op-language", and Fractran should be called Brainfuck.

brainfuck is brainfuck because it's a brain fuck to write programs that in other languages are simple

I still can't understand how to do an if statement in brainfuck

while (x--){ ... }

or [- dotdotdot ] in bf.

@mniip The same is true for many esoteric languages, especially Turing tarpits. To take @luserdroog's example, would you know how to write anything at all in Fractran? (I would just about, but only because I've read an explanation of it as a Gödelification of Minsky register machines, which I like so much that I considered doing my dissertation project on a drag-and-drop MRM builder with macros and debugging).

EEEHH...

I just looked at the FRACTRAN wikipedia page

I see no powers of 2 here... just 15 825 725...

It would be better phrased as "the values in this sequence which are powers of 2, except for the initial 2, are ..."

Close vote please, Too Broad --> codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/26083/3808

@PeterTaylor oh, so if we filter powers of 2

we are left with 2^1, 2^2, 2^3, 2^5...

looks like I have written an O(1) sqrt implementation

but with a terribly huge constant

$ time ./a <<< 0.5
0.70710678118655
real	1m25.563s

$ time ./a <<< 1337
36.56501059756444
real	1m27.262s

aw

why was the question closed... it seemed great to me

@mniip Because it's a duplicate of codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/73/18487

Unfortunately, I accidentally clicked the too broad close vote without thinking and couldn't change it because I was the fifth vote

but it's not

one is code-golf and the other's code-trolling

Also it can't be "too broad". There have to be simple code-trolls

The replacement of a winning criteria is not enough to convince ME that they are not duplicate

If my opinion was the only one that mattered, then anything I closed would not require 5 votes.

But that's how croudsourced moderation works. I have my opinion, you have yours, and we vote.

well, I voted for reopen

And I went ahead and explained myself in a comment on the challenge, since people apparently think that they are entitled to an explanation.

My problem is that it appears that people CV [code-trolling] questions just because they don't like them. That may not be true, but the close reasons make no sense for some of them. Code trolling is naturally broad, and "lack of criteria" is a simple edit away, since everyone knows what it should be. If you are closing simply because you don't think the entire tag belongs here, you should own up and say it. There's a custom close reason for that.

The appearance of injustice is just as damaging as actual injustice to the askers.

@Geobits I wouldn't close vote a code-trolling question that had more than two sentences of spec (Too Broad), was not a duplicate of MULTIPLE challenges (I only mentioned one), didn't look like a programming question that belongs on SO (how to find square root), etc.

And in fact I've upvoted some of the more clever ones

Code Trolling seems like an art form that 90% of people suck at anyway, so it's no surprise that the questions are bad

Most of the popular trolls are 1)short, 2) common tasks (which explains duplicates), and 3) examples of bad SO questions (indeed that's how the tag started to begin with).

For example: this, this, and this.

If you force every troll to be a thoroughly explained, uncommon task, then it's no longer a troll.

I don't like any of those questions, but I'm not going to go close vote them all because I wasn't a member at the time

Can you give an example of a code-troll you do like? You said you've upvoted some, so I'm curious what a "proper" one looks like.

I enjoyed reading the answers on this one: codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/22333/…

@mniip Of course it can be too broad. "Write some code" is as broad as it gets.

@Rsuher Even that one hits at least two of your three "bad" points though, doesn't it? There's only really one sentence of spec(the first), and it looks like an SO question.

@Geobits Really? Do you get to determine what hits my bad points, or me?

I think I do.

No, I'm trying to figure out what you think makes a good code troll. I'm not telling you what you think, I'm asking. Only the most pedantic reading would suggest otherwise.

Notice the question mark?

You listed three points against one question, and I'm asking how those don't apply to one you like.

Adding "does it not?" to the end of a statement is leading at its best. If you have a question, grow a pair and ask it like a real question, don't you think?

Meh. "If you have no argument, argue about grammar." You know exactly what I was asking. If you don't want to answer, just don't, but don't pretend I'm shoving words in your mouth.

You don't understand. There are people who simply can't be argued with. I know where you're going with your argument, and it ends at "This is what I consider too broad" and "This is what YOU consider too broad." It ends there. Period.

I want to make sure it goes down that path, and if I feel like I'm being led, I won't follow.

Cool. I do agree that "Code Trolling seems like an art form that 90% of people suck at anyway".

(myself possibly included, I'm hardly objective)

If you want to force me to strictly define what Too Broad and Duplicate means in terms of how many sentences, swapping the winning spec, etc., meta would be a good place. Even if you and I did reach an agreement, the rest of the community wouldn't necessarily follow.

Then and only then will you force me to say "Code trolling does/does not belong here."

No, I don't think we need to have a meta post where everyone posts their own interpretation. I was honestly just curious what made this one different than others.

But I do think that if people are close voting because they think the tag is bad for the site, they should say so in a custom CV rather than using a "I'll fit this reason to it" option.

That's why I started with "appearance" vs. "actuality".

More than two sentences would be a good start for any question

Otherwise, we could put every piece of trash from SO here and stamp it code trolling

I like that the post I linked to posted some "inspiration"

I also think pop contest is a relevant enough change for sorting an array to make it not a duplicate, because the answers fall in an entirely different class than code-golf

How doesn't that last apply to the new one? It's also a pop-contest code troll...?

I do like your linked question, better, I'll give you that.

I guess it does, but my primary close vote was Too Broad for the two sentences of explanation

It wasn't until after you said something that I went and found the duplicate(s)

But by then it was too late to change my vote

I do hope Doorknob starts a blog about CG. The idea is growing on me slowly. It would be a nice addition to my morning (along with the amusement from XKCD and the week old news from Yahoo! News)

It has potential I guess. I'm struggling to think of topics that have lasting appeal, though.

Does anyone know of a good news site for technology and politics (with LITTLE amounts of pop culture)?

We can always blog about niche languages, but how often is there something along the lines of "What's new in the world of Code Golf", ya know?

I used to read arstechnica. Haven't been keeping up lately, but it was more tech than politics.

There are the sites which came out of the Slashdot Beta backlash: soylentnews and pipedot. Neither has really taken off, but I think that they're aiming to be what /. was a decade ago.

Well, a blog would be a good place to post when the community reaches consensus on a topic, to give it more visibility. Currently, I check things on meta and then never see them again until Peter Taylor references it in an argument

So I never know when things are decided upon

Also, things like "We have a new minecraft server" or "stack exchange meta is separating" (because I had no idea)

Or maybe there is a class of problems we haven't touched on yet, and the blog could encourage people to write a challenge around it

Yea, like I said, there's potential there. I just think it needs some sort of unifying theme. Otherwise, it'll just a be a jumble of random topics and people will drop off. The problem I see is that any single (or small group of) topic may not have enough content.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do it by any means.

I'm just on the fence about it, I guess. I could see it going either way.

Kinda like action movies. They're either good or very bad.

Maybe people could contribute something to it (bad example - someone sketches a comic for each post)

We have a question with 2 answers in the hot network questions list lol codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/26099/18487

Makes me wonder what the system calls a "hot" question

Basically something like this: meta.stackexchange.com/q/60756/212780

Number of answers, question score, answer(s) score, and age.

Since this site is relatively low-traffic, it doesn't take as much to go "hot".

Haha I stopped reading after seeing 30 formulas and nobody saying "THIS is what we implemented in the end."

My eyes are pretty lazy (not the kind where one drifts off)

Yea, it's somewhat unclear what is being used right now, since I think it's changed in the last couple years. I know those are the basic ingredients, though.

So we are probably under adjusted

Seems like we have quite a few in that list lately

True. Some good, some bad, but there's always at least a couple, normally 3-4 at a given time it seems.

Now ProgrammerDan has disappeared along with Chris-JesterYoung

Who is kidnapping them?!

sigh

That doesn't make it off-topic...

Wth? When did that get added?

@Rusher Some minutes ago. I saw it in the Close Vote queue.

That might be a bit my fault?

If there was a custom reason outside "off-topic", that would probably help.

@Geobits Off-topic or not, they simply should not be closed because people don't like them. A downvote is for that.

Oh, I agree. I was just saying if people are going to vote that way, they should be honest about it. I didn't say it was right.

For sure, you can say that that close-reason has no quibbling meaning. It's direct.

@Rusher Real Programmers......CodeReview FTW ...... JK

please forgive me if I use CR Memes here.

BTW.Work

To summarize the conclusions and arguments about that question from the last two hours - If you think it is too broad, close vote. If you think it sucks, down vote. If you think it sucks and it is too broad, close vote and down vote. I find it odd that every time a vote happens on a Code Trolling question, all of the tag's supporters suddenly throw a fit and claim that they are being repressed. How many more times do we have to do this before we can vote on a question without being called out?

Trying to fix/improve/reopen a question is the right thing to do. That's why it's called 'on-hold' now, because it's supposed to be a path to redemption.

That's why I asked what made a good troll question earlier, to see how it could be improved.

There are plenty of questions that just aren't good, sure. But are we saying that there's no way that could be edited to make it a good question?

The discussion about goodness is completely different from the close vote discussion. I think that creativity is first and foremost what I look for when up or downvoting CT questions

How is that separate? People think the question is bad, they close vote. That was my assumption anyway. By "bad" I didn't mean the underlying question, I meant the post as-is, so "too broad" would fit as "bad" in that usage.

"Good" meaning "I won't close-vote this", I suppose.

But yes, I agree that up/down should be separate from CVs.

I started with the exact opposite assumption, that each type of vote had a purpose

You got one person to admit in their close vote that they just don't like code trolling questions (bravo to you for provoking such a response), but it's not the norm and your broad assumption that that's how it works here is insulting to those of us who use our votes properly.

My original comment on that post: "Close-voters: Can you help me understand how this is any more "broad" than other unclosed [code-trolling] questions? ..."

I don't think that was an unfair question, considering it was closed as 'too broad'.

The only place I mentioned the other was here in chat. I have no way of knowing whether that influenced the new close vote or not.

Well, obviously the new close vote "I don't like code trolling." was not in response to that, but in response to your bolded text in the chat saying that the close voters should be honest and state their REAL reason

Ok fine. Even if it was not in response to your provocation, it's still not the norm.

My original point in chat was that the truth doesn't matter if the appearance is there.

And it very well could have been a response to my chat.

So in other words, it takes one bad close vote to counter the remainder of the potentially valid close votes and start a Code Trolling tug of war.

Not really. I don't know if any of the original close votes were "bad", as you put it. The tug of war started before that was confirmed.

But it is suspicious when there are several people on record saying "I don't like code trolling" and basically every new question with the tag gets at least a couple close votes.

(Whether it is ultimately closed or not)

I'd like to go on record - I don't like code trolling either.

The only reason I don't like it is because 90% of the OP's are terrible authors

It just happens to generate more bad questions than other tags do

It also generates a few good ones

[algorithms] on SO generates quite a few bad ones, too (generally the homework types), but you don't see close votes on every new one.

The bad ones are campaigned for in a very unusual manner. Every one that gets closed starts some sort of argument

I didn't mean for that to be so complicated that it requires references to other sites. I meant "If a tag has 90% bad questions, 90% are closed and should be."

That close vote was mine, and I've given my reason in the comments. It wasn't in response to anyone's comment - I hit 'other' in the off-topic section and then gave that as a reason. It then adds that to the list.

They get campaigned for (most likely) because it's unusual in the SE world for people to close highly popular questions with 10+ answers. Personally, I think if that happens, there should be some discussion over it. I think SO went through the same thing with "fun" questions early on, with lots of meta/chat about it.

@Gareth I had a feeling it was you ;)

@Geobits The correct way to go about it would be to start a meta discussion about the term "Broad" and try to at least limit its use to things the community can agree is too broad.

If there isn't such a post already...

Hmm, I thought there was one, but searching isn't helping.

But there have been discussions about trolling, so I wouldn't exactly say that it hasn't been discussed on meta yet. Just that there hasn't been a conclusion to that discussion.

I believe that [code-trolling] and to a much lesser extent [popularity contest] here are very much like the polls and 'best of' question types on SO which all get closed for being off-topic because that's not what the site is about.

I don't think the discussion is going to lead anywhere. You are trying to fit a tag to the site's standards, when in fact it's the QUESTION that must fit the site's standards

I'd venture that both the question and the tag's "intended use" must fit the purpose.

I think the bigger problem is defining "purpose" in a broadly acceptable way.

Well, you made up something like "Code Trolling is exempt from the Too Broad requirement". I disagree that a tag can be exempt from any of the close reasons. Furthermore, a tag need not say "Questions using this tag must also fit the site's standards." DUH! We already know that.

It's hard for me to see how a well-specified (as compared to golfs, say, with full spec) code troll would allow much creativity. If you don't allow some leniency, you really might as well just CV every single one of them, because I haven't seen one yet with a full spec.

If code trolling is to exist, then yes, it needs a slightly different interpretation of the rules. The same way that PPCG in general is "exempt" from some of SE's rules.

Also the same way the entire "tips" tag works. That doesn't seem to follow any rules at all, IMO.

It's a blatant example of the type of thing that SE is against, polling questions where everyone chips in an answer and none can possibly be considered "best".

I think it should remain under the rules of PPCG, and die if there are no clever trolls out there who can generate good questions that also fit the site's standards. I also think tips belong on meta (but that's another discussion)

@Rusher Tips don't belong on Meta:

@ProgramFOX Wow if that is not the most authoritative reference I have ever seen...

@ProgramFOX I disagree, but meta or main matters not much to me, as long as no rep is changing hands.

@Geobits Rep is not an issue for tips questions, because they should be Community Wiki.

The fact that rep should not change hands is yet another reason for being on meta.

Right, that's what I meant. Whether meta or CW-on-main doesn't matter much to me. Non-CW on main would be different.

Someone had to post a no answer. meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/1469/18487

> "Tips for golfing in some language"-type posts are an exception to this rule. Such posts are community wiki and do not collect reputation.

^^^ That's on the help page.

Doesn't that also mean that they should be CW on main?

I think the fact that it is on the Help Page is evidence that a few people took action on a whim (3 votes on a meta post does not equal community concensus)

Three votes is not that many indeed. Hopefully the answers get some more votes.

The Help Page in general is somewhat "off" for this site, I think. Some of the pages simply can't be edited to fit our somewhat-different outlook here, leading to things like "Sharing your research helps everyone. Tell us what you found and why it didn’t meet your needs," which obviously doesn't make much sense here.

I know it's off in comparison to other sites. I think it's also off even by our own standards.

Questions about questions are metaquestions and belong on meta.

@Rusher You've got that back to front. The meta post was explaining the status quo, which had been reflected in the help page for more than two years.

I agree that tips should be meta. The +1 on your answer is mine.

@PeterTaylor You remind me of my old Subway manager, who refused my suggestion to save thousands of dollars by switching from sticky labels to easy wash grease pens because we'd been using labels for years.

That's a rather free association, isn't it? "You're getting cause and effect the wrong way round" isn't at all the same as "We'll carry on doing it like this because we've always done it like this"

@PeterTaylor I'd be interested in knowing why it was decided that way, since I haven't been here that long. Do you have any meta links to old discussions? I tried searching, but couldn't find anything relevant older than a year or so.

Are you trying to say that the community agreed on this topic a lot more two years ago?

I think the fact that it's two years old SUPPORTS the argument that a few people acted on a whim

It was discussed more than three years ago. And although I'm sure you'll say that 2 upvotes on each answer isn't community consensus, for the meta in 2011 that's a lot.

Both answers are "I don't know."

@PeterTaylor Thanks for the link. @Rusher Yes, but the one has two mods weighing in on the side of CW-main.

And neither comes out and says meta.

I'm not saying I agree, but it does show that there was at least some discussion way back.

While Peter Taylor has me sidetracked with years old meta posts (as usual, you devious bastard), nobody has addressed the fact that a question about questions is a meta question.

dmckee's one is "I don't think there's a consensus yet, but my opinion is that they're fine on main". Since no-one disagreed in comments or answers, I assume that at some point between then and the end of the year the mods added it to the FAQ.

Do I have to go and comment on all of those year old posts that you find, or will you accept that things are different now?

Surely the key distinction is that a question about the site is a meta-site question.

A question about questions on the site is also a question about the site

I'm not actually primarily arguing for tips being on main: I'm just trying to correct your perception that someone took recent action based on 3 upvotes on a meta post.

A strategy about how to play certain types of roles in a game is a metagaming strategy

I don't know if 'tips' are questions about questions. They're questions about strategy if anything.

Did I say someone took recent action?

@Rusher Right, but you wouldn't find that on role-playing meta, you'd find it on main.

Hmm, I might have just changed my own mind about this.

"I think the fact that it is on the Help Page is evidence that a few people took action on a whim (3 votes on a meta post does not equal community concensus)" seems to indicate that you believe that adding it to the help page postdates the meta post.

Well as usual, Peter Taylor, your ability to read my sentences correctly fails you

You seem to indicate a lot of things

@Rusher FWIW, I read that the same way...

Is there a connection between the main phrase and the parenthesised one, then?

I think that a few people made the edit on a whim. Three posts does not equal community consensus. Is that better now that I have made into a separate sentence for you?

I will argue that a CURRENT lack community concensus is evidence of PAST whims. Evidence being difference than "causation"

If there is no concensus now, there likely was none when the edit was made

I'd argue that it had to be decided one way or the other initially. It went to main/CW. There hasn't since been any consensus to change it, so it has remained.

Whether the initial decision was based on whim or not doesn't really matter, since apparently nobody's cared enough to argue much for the change.

If "tips for answering" belongs on main, then "tips for editing", "tips for asking a good question", and every other meta question ALSO belongs on main.

It's not "tips for answering", it's "tip for golfing". The former would be "format your code blocks", "explain the code for esoteric entries", etc, and would definitely belong on meta.

But it IS a tip for answering

You had a good analogy with role-playing characters. It's a meta-strategy, but it's not a meta-site question.

I was getting to that but trying to figure out how to word it

rpg.stackexchange.com/search?q=tips

You have a game, a site for asking or answering questions about the game, and a site for asking or answering questions about questions or answers.

It's obvious what the game is. It's the piece of software that you play.

The questions about the game are like "How do I farm X?"

Answers are like "You go here and do this and that."

Those are obviously MAIN questions, agree?

Or "how can I more effectively farm X?"

Exactly

You need to know how to play the game

Which is the same as "More effectively golfing", isn't it?

I'm getting there

I need to see the entire analogy before I decide

A meta question for our game is like "How do I ask questions about effectively doing X?"

Or "Should questions about x be banned?"

Agreed.

In the main question, farming is a specific task.

Here is where you and I go a different way

I think the analogy here is the specific task of answering "answering how do I sort an array"

You think the specific task is "golfing my answer to how do I sort an array"

I honestly can't tell which is the better analogy, so you might be right.

Hmm. I think the specific task is more along the lines of "How can I make programs in X shorter?"

What is the winning criteria for such a question?

There is none, hence CW ;)

I don't think they fit 100% on main, but I wouldn't think they fit 100% on meta either.

So (as I started with) it doesn't matter that much to me, as long as no rep is changing hands. I'm leaning more toward main now, though.

I was about to post tips for editing questions on meta the other day due to a disagreement with Peter Taylor about how best to edit questions. Should I post that as a CW on main then?

The task is as specific as making programs for an unknown question shorter.

No, because it is 100% specific to questions here on this site. You could apply golfing tips to codegolf.com, for example.

I think that we separated at the analogy I gave. I think that "Best way to golf answers in X language" and "Best way to golf how do I sort an array" are in two different leagues

Yes, it's like every post on main

Shortest code to sort an array is a VERY typical challenge

and it clearly belongs on main

I have to grab lunch really quick

brb 1 hr

Eh, I think every site has to decide what exceptions to make. For example, you can still find old listy, pollish questions on SO, simply because they were/are valuable resources.

@Geobits I had a lot of time over lunch to think and I think I broke it down to it's pieces properly this time

There are three categories - questions specific to MANY answers in MANY languages, MANY answers in ONE language, and ONE answer in ONE language

The loopholes question was related to many answers in many languages

Your wolf submission was a single answer in a single language

The in between is where the tips fall, and it has one MANY and one ONE

For questions that apply to MANY answers in ONE language, there is a many argument (for meta), and there is a one argument (for main)

The site is challenge answer centric, so I choose to support the many answers argument and claim that is belongs on main.

The site is also programming centric, so you choose the language argument and claim it for main.

And I think the answer is "Indeterminate"

I think we already knew that before lunch but I didn't understand it in as many words back then

@Doorknob Forgive my use of it's. I can't edit it now :(

fml I even messed up the words too. I claim it belongs on meta. Anyway, you get the idea.

Really wish my wall of text would just disappear. I think I'm getting a fever and just writing things out of frustration at lack of sleep and said fever.

Nice. Go take some ibuprofen and chill. We'll just agree to disagree on this one, as you said ;)

I feel like this is a duplicate but I can't find the original.

I like to think I have a way with words