Language Overflow

CowperKettle

05:19

What is the best way to indicate that only one projection was taken (one shot) during an x-ray examination?
"Plain radiography of the chest (single projection)"?
I googled for "single projection" and there are few results.

ColleenV

11:08

@CowperKettle I’m not sure because that seems like it would have specialized terminology. I might use “single exposure”

M.A.R.

11:28

> So in chapter 3 Coggins argues that metaphysical nihilism is incompatible with any view of possible
worlds according to which worlds are composed of objects (the so-called
compositionalist view) and is committed to either ersatzism about worlds
or a substantivalism about space-time.

My headism hurtism magnumism

SmokeDetector

12:30

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly punctuation marks in answer (35): Either reason for or reason of by Bruce Murray on ell.SE

ColleenV

12:49

@M.A.R. top of the morning phrase: word salad a string of empty, incoherent, unintelligible, or nonsensical words or comments

M.A.R.

13:06

@ColleenV I'm pretty sure that has been suggested before

Also good morning!

ColleenV

@M.A.R. top o' the morning to ya

With a name like "Colleen" I'm allowed to role play being Irish, even if I do it poorly ;)

dialectblog.com/2011/06/27/top-o-the-morning-myth-and-reality

userr2684291

16:59

@EddieKal Did you reject my flag requesting you guys edit that Trump BS FF keeps excreting whenever there's political stuff mentioned in a question? Kinda irks me, because I have to read someone's political nonsense here, and I don't want to read it unless it's the mention use of the use–mention distinction, haha.

Just like he can intersperse his idiotic opinions with advice on English, you can remove it.

I just had to read it again a couple seconds ago on a different answer, where it was completely unnecessary to mention any of that stuff.

My American friend recently said "I'm now having to...", and I don't think I'd ever heard this usage, so I looked it up and found this, where the commenter says "You're right that it sounds like the obligation is temporary, but it can't be one-time.", but it was exactly that in the context in which I observed this usage, but this might have something to do with the choice of verb.

Eddie Kal

17:25

@userr2684291 You mean the one on "Twitter presidency"? Yup that was me. I understood where you were coming from with that flag and the distraction argument, but what FF said in that comment serves to explain the background of that question. Absent a little background on Trump's Twitter presence, it's hard to give an informative explanation of that particular term. My two cents

I have just noticed he did just bring up Trump in another comment under a question not directly related. I would agree that this one is a bit distracting

-1

Q: What is the meaning of "If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity....." from the highlighted part in the picture down below?

What is the meaning of: “If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”

However, to remove it in my mind would clearly constitute not-so-necessary censorship.

userr2684291

Did you notice there's an actual answer to that question under which he posted a comment? The answer doesn't contain any of that BS he spews.

Eddie Kal

I am on the fence on this one, but still leaning toward leaving it at that

userr2684291

This answer has been accepted, too.

M.A.R.

Hmm why is it BS? I might be missing something

userr2684291

There's never a need to qualify just about everything with a personal opinion/speculation.

M.A.R.

17:31

It is distracting on that closable question

userr2684291

Esp. when that thing isn't even relevant.

M.A.R.

Hasn't he always been doing it?

userr2684291

Yep.

M.A.R.

IIRC the times I saw it, it was helping things

userr2684291

It never seemed necessary.

M.A.R.

17:32

It's not necessary there

Eddie Kal

@userr2684291 You mean this answer?

1

A: It's been called a twitter presidency

“It's been called a Twitter presidency” The Times of India It (refers to the presidency) has been called (is written in the present perfect passive voice). In the active voice the sentence would be: “Historians/journalists/lawyers/ambassadors (whoever) have called the last four years ‘The Twi...

userr2684291

Yep.

It's literally enclosed in parentheses in a comment, lol.

ColleenV

@EddieKal There's always the option to edit out the distracting stuff

J.R. and I have done that on rare occasions when there was value to the comment but an addendum that distracted from it.

M.A.R.

So anyway, I get 30% more depressed when I look at close reasons.

ColleenV

I wouldn't insert new words, but removing distracting irrelevant ones without changing the meaning of the comment is within your purview

M.A.R.

17:35

That's a critical issue

I tried filtering CV reasons, but it didn't work.

We need some consensus on what close vote to use for what situations

ColleenV

@M.A.R. Impossible

There are too many situations

M.A.R.

Yeah, but a few are most common

ColleenV

and most questions that should be closed can fall under multiple reasons

Eddie Kal

@userr2684291 I see it as complementing the background given by FF. Either that or the OP, presumably having no prior knowledge of Trump's Twitter presence, did some Googling and then understood the term based on Mari Lou A's grammar lesson. The answer alone does not tell you why a U.S. president is called the "Twitter president" by the media

M.A.R.

And it occurs to me that we probably can't agree, ever, on those common situations

ColleenV

17:37

@M.A.R. I have close-voted as "needs more detail" questions that others have close-voted as duplicates. Who is right?

It's a duplicate, but it's a low quality question

Everything is a judgement call, if it gets closed that's the important part

the close reasons are really advice to the author on how to fix the question, so if there are multiple things wrong with it, multiple close reasons are a good thing

userr2684291

@EddieKal Y'know, if he stated it as a simple fact: Trump tweets a lot – I wouldn't say a word. Whether his supporters use Twitter or know how to use a computer at all (see, that's already coloring it nicely) is really irrelevant, and so are FFs speculations when it comes to what Trump's great mastermind plan is.

He's literally a biased source. And there's absolutely no need for that kinda stuff when it comes to learning English, like the heck...

ColleenV

@EddieKal My opinion is regardless of whether the opinion expressed in the comment is right, wrong, or universally annoying, it's already caused enough angst to remove it or edit it to remove the disruption

It's just a comment and only moderators can do anything about them to make them more inclusive or neutral

This isn't a forum

It might be worth discussing with snail and glor

userr2684291

@EddieKal The answer alone has answered the asker's question, and their question wasn't about the meaning of the term.

Eddie Kal

17:56

@userr2684291 @ColleenV Well, isn't it a bit of a knee-jerk reaction that every time a question/comment appears with reference to current events, prominent figures, we think it is matter of personal opinion? I understand y'all's concerns and I understand my position on this could be easily perceived as non-neutral.

But here is the thing: A. Those comments, the twitter presidency one and the MAGA one have not been flagged except by @userr2684291 B. the MAGA one, a comment even I felt a bit over the top, and a following comment of FF's have both been multi-upvoted. I know for a fact I didn't upvote either of those comments, so it's safe to say the community instead of finding it disruptive or disturbing, sees in them something positively informative.

C. Why censor when you don't have to? When you are able to not censor?

@ColleenV Okay, sure will do. But I know pretty clearly where I am standing on this and why

M.A.R.

@ColleenV I'd normally agree, but this just means there's too much overlap in close reasons

userr2684291

I only flagged the first one, because for the first time I thought you could easily remove such opinion with nothing of value being lost. FF tends to thread his political nonsense through his comment-answers all the time, and I never bother flagging these because I feel it's "too much trouble" rephrasing what someone said. I'm not sure why you've decided to not understand the actual question that was asked; it wasn't about the object of the sentence, or the meaning.

M.A.R.

Regardless of the guidance argument (what will the OP hear?), close-worthy questions and ones that remain open are increasingly similar to me so I can't draw a line. And close-worthy questions getting closed for the "wrong" reason, which happens a lot TBF (a nonproofreading question can't be closed as proofreading) are already vaguely closable by something else, so it makes judgment burdensome and the review queues intimidating

ColleenV

@EddieKal It's not a matter of free speech, it's a matter of keeping ELL focused on English

If a particular example is causing political angst, and it doesn't have to, the example should be changed because it distracts from the English

Frankly, I would have a harder time if it were an answer as opposed to a comment

Comments have limited value and if they cause one person to be upset, you can bet that there are many others upset who haven't said anything but were still negatively impacted

so, i don't feel bad about deleting them

FF and I have discussed many times the issues with writing comments instead of answers and he is pretty used to having them deleted

In this case, I would just trim it

but it's probably best if you talk with the current team about where the team thinks the line is

Eddie Kal

@ColleenV Free speech actually didn't occur to me until you bring it up. I feel the distraction from English issue is an unspectacular bridge that could be crossed when we come to it. I don't stand for FS in this case, but rather relying on a simple "no issues have arisen, so what's the big rush" attitude

So let's look at this comment

ColleenV

18:08

@EddieKal I don't think you should rush to act - it's best to wait to talk to the other mods

Eddie Kal

> It's just an ordinary passive construction - where the subject of the verb to call (= to name, to bestow a name upon) is unspecified. Equivalent to Persons unspecified have called it a Twitter presidency. But actually, I'm sure those "unspecified" people are what I would call the Twitterati. (Most Trump supporters don't use Twitter; he himself mainly uses it to wind up his political opponents, who do use Twitter.)

I feel like if we take out "Most Trump supporters don't use Twitter; he himself mainly uses it to wind up his political opponents, who do use Twitter." sure the comment still stands, but really why do we have to?

ColleenV

Just trim it. The parenthetical part has little to do with the question and is upsetting people

Why keep it?

My perspective is that, due to their nature, comments are guilty until proven innocent

userr2684291

In the previous sentence he assumes the asker knows what the term in question means, so his "wind up" isn't used to explain its meaning, but to merely color it a certain way.

ColleenV

I've ranted about this before, but comments contribute very little to the site compared to questions and answers

and long comment threads under questions actually have negative impacts on the site

userr2684291

@EddieKal I often upvote FF's comments, regardless of how "disturbing" they are... I don't understand what the C. thing is about – is this really censoring? Do you mean just "edit"? I told you why, so there's your answer. If I didn't think it worthy of an edit, I wouldn't've flagged it.

I bet most people don't care, which is why they don't flag anything anyway.

ColleenV

18:13

@userr2684291 For every one person that takes the time to complain there are 50 lurkers that will have a negative reaction to something and not say anything

Eddie Kal

The parenthetical is informational: it tells us that Trump's Twitter presence is mostly reacted to by his critics, thus explaining who has called Trump that term (he could have gone farther and made it clearer). "Twitter presidency" is not a compliment. That is missing in the answer and only FF's comment alludes to it.

ColleenV

I don't think a flag should every be resolved with "it's only bothering one person so it doesn't matter"

@EddieKal If it's valuable information, it should be in an answer with supporting citations

It's not, it's an opinion held by some of why Trump tweets the things he does

There's no need to delve that deeply into US politics to answer a question about English

userr2684291

@EddieKal Hm, I see what you mean. It's still irrelevant as regards the actual question...

ColleenV

And I will warn you right now, that there are many users who will incorporate controversy into their questions purposefully to get attention

Not in this case, but you should not hesitate to refocus the questions on English where possible

Eddie Kal

@ColleenV Sure I agree with that. But @userr2684291 suggests in their flag that I "remove political/speculative bs, or everything". I fail to say anything speculative in FF's comment. How is the comment, or just the parenthetical speculative?

ColleenV

18:18

I think you should focus on the spirit of the flag and not on the specifics

userr2684291

Because it talks about Trump supporters? Because it talks about his intentions? How the hell does he know that?

And you can remove it entirely because the answer already contains that information...

ColleenV

The problem with the comment is that it is gratuitously political

Eddie Kal

@ColleenV Fully understood and agreed. Don't think this case is one of them.

ColleenV

We remove gratuitous vulgarity

we should remove any gratuitous stuff that is causing a disruption

And by "we" I mean the community

this is just my opinion and advice, I'm not a mod any more

Eddie Kal

@ColleenV Totally agree. But in this case, where is the disruption? I simply don't see it.

ColleenV

18:20

so I really think you should touch base with the team

@EddieKal Have we not be discussing it in chat for pages and pages?

Any time a community member feels strongly enough to flag something, that is a disruption

that should be taken seriously

userr2684291

Meh, it's fine.

ColleenV

I can't point you to specifics, but I know for a fact that every one person that complains represents a lot more people than you'd think

userr2684291

But I just told them about the specifics?

I used the word speculative for a reason.

ColleenV

That's fine, it doesn't matter though

Eddie Kal

@ColleenV Yes we have. I am simply reiterating that I do not share that opinion and I do feel pretty strongly that certain precautionary measures could be censorship

userr2684291

18:23

They asked about it, and are shifting the question of whether that irrelevant comment should be removed based on my exact wording.

ColleenV

@EddieKal This isn't a forum

This is a Q&A site where you ask questions and get answers, no distractions

Moderating it is not censorship

The reason that comment should be trimmed is because it contains irrelevant and inflammatory stuff, not because it mentions Trump

Eddie Kal

@ColleenV So doesn't the opposite also stand? What you are pointing out is that when one flag pops up there are people who didn't bother to flag or speak out. By the same token, when certain mod action is taken, especially censorship, objection occurs or not there are people who choose to remain silent

The opposite is also as true, right?

ColleenV

Moderation is not censorship

And yes, you will take many actions that people won't like

it doesn't mean they shouldn't be taken

That's why there is a team

talk to them

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, toxic answer detected (158): Why is the correct spelling "eating" and not "eatting"? by Sounds link shit a changed in on ell.SE

userr2684291

The comment is also factually inaccurate, if you want that... the subject's present alright, it's just taken on the role of "patient", but I'm actually willing to disregard that, haha.

M.A.R.

19:28

@userr2684291 The subject got COVID? :o

Inb4 he deliberately acts obtuse and tries to explain it to me

On the subject of your hahas.

I have no idea if I should hear them on my mind like a snobby British half-gentleman haha, the Korean haha in Parasite, or some sort of low-pitched giggle

Maybe Japanese samurai making a combo move with the sword, hmm

> A new paper in Psychological Science says that the more confident participants were about their estimates of an uncertain quantity, the less they adjusted their estimates in response to feedback about their accuracy and to the costs of being wrong.

Well duh, waste of paper.

How else do you define confidence?

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