The Bikeshed

curiousdannii

12:06 AM

@ArtOfCode for the custom close reasons

That said, with so few it means we can only get the most general idea of what will be common later

So in another three months or so it would be good to revisit them

ArtOfCode

Aye. As far as I've seen, we haven't had a lot of any one type of off-topic question. More time is definitely needed.

curiousdannii

1:40 AM

@ArtOfCode I think we should add a recommendations close reason soon... I think we'll always get a trickle of those questions.

Stack Exchange

4:38 AM

I came here to chew bubblegum and say no more than eighteen words ... and I'm all out of

ArtOfCode

9:16 AM

@curiousdannii What do you mean by recommendations? License recommendations are on topic.

curiousdannii

9:33 AM

@ArtOfCode software/media recommendations, like I suggested in the close reason suggestions post

ArtOfCode

9:55 AM

@curiousdannii Oh right. Have we had many of them?

curiousdannii

10:29 AM

@ArtOfCode Some. Not sure exactly how many. That's why I was asking what the mod tools might indicate, if it would help to filter to the questions closed as off-topic.

ArtOfCode

@curiousdannii I think the best close stats available are those I imaged yesterday - this page, can you access it? I haven't done extensive looking through my tools for better close stats, but that page contains a fair amount of detail.

Here's the whole page as it currently stands:

I count 6 custom reasons that mentioned something about being a recommendation. That's 6 of 53 custom reasons, which is 11.32%.

5 of 13 or 38% in the past 30 days; 2 of 6 or 33% in the past 14 days.

@curiousdannii That's definitely something that warrants watching then, and if we get more then I'll add a reason.

curiousdannii

11:11 AM

@ArtOfCode Oh, I didn't see that it listed all the custom close reasons

But there are also the questions closed using the generic off-topic reason, which we'd have to manually inspect.

ArtOfCode

@curiousdannii I'm putting together an Excel spreadsheet of the data on that page, so you can have a play with it

@curiousdannii Done; get it here.

I'll take a look at those with the generic reason

ArtOfCode

11:35 AM

Discuss: is this question really off-topic?

2

Q: How can I license something?

Let's say I have a blog post, and I want to release it under a Creative Commons license. How do I do that? Do I put it at the bottom of the post?

@curiousdannii Of 14 generic off-topic closed questions, I found only 1 that was a recommendation

So not really enough to massively affect the stats

Martijn

@ArtOfCode I don't know, really. For one, it's barely a question for "experts", and I still consider that somewhat important in beta. It's also off-topic in that it asks how to release whatever under some license (which doesn't have to be an open culture license)

If it were narrowed down to an open source license in general, it becomes a boat question. The answer would be the same way you license anything else, only you make sure your license is suitable

that said, licensing things is among the important things you do in open culture

also, what congusbongus commented, some licenses have requirements about how to license, or best practices, so that makes it very broad again

I'd allow something like "I have a blog that I want to publish under CC-BY-SA 3.0, what is an effective way to do this" (which might be primary opinion based), or "I have a blog, and I want to put a single post under a different license than the rest of the blog, how do I do this? I want the license to be CC-BY-SA 3.0"

ArtOfCode

11:59 AM

@Martijn Thanks for the input. I noticed it and wondered, because it seems at first glance to be on-topic for open source - it's asking about using applying an open license, which our new help center declares is on-topic.

Martijn

As a side note, if you want broader input, it's a good idea to post such things to meta

chat is nice for real-time communication, but it lacks the wide audience of meta

ArtOfCode

Of course. I'm so used to using chat now, I keep forgetting about using meta. One post coming up.

Martijn

chat is rather self-selecting as well, and I want to avoid the formation of an informal in-crowd that make decisions or influence decisions in a less public venue

ArtOfCode

@Martijn Keep reminding me of that if it seems like I'm headed that way :)

Martijn

You're not, but it's a natural human tendency :D

ArtOfCode

12:09 PM

0

Q: Is this question really off-topic?

While looking at some closed questions to generate some stats, I came across this question. It asks how to apply a Creative Commons license to a blog post. It's been closed as off-topic: not about open source. At first glance, it appears to me to be on-topic: it's about applying an open license...

discussion on-topic specific-question questions

Meta Data

12:23 PM

0

Q: Is this question really off-topic?

While looking at some closed questions to generate some stats, I came across this question. It asks how to apply a Creative Commons license to a blog post. It's been closed as off-topic: not about open source. At first glance, it appears to me to be on-topic: it's about applying an open license...

discussion on-topic specific-question questions

1

Q: [tag:development], what's it for?

We have a good number of questions tagged development. I don't really get what it's for. The tag wiki explains Use this tag for questions regarding the development of open projects. So what are we talking about? About software development? business development? project development? Any kind...

discussion tags

Anarach

1:24 PM

Oops, not about bikes . .. sawwvyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Martijn

1:34 PM

you can talk about bikes if you want @Anarach

I for one know jack-all about it though

Anarach

If you are interested then why not pop in here

The Pitstop

For the motormouth in you! (mechanics.stackexchange.com)

3

Martijn

things software-related are my more natural home

Mnementh

2:26 PM

@StackExchange Do the kids these days even understand the reference here? ;-)

ArtOfCode

@Mnementh Yes, yes we do.

Martijn

@Mnementh Tip of the day: Calling the kids these days the kids these days makes you sound old

Just pretend you're hella fly with the kids, booya

#amidoingthisright

Mnementh

@Martijn I am old :-)

Martijn

I'm still in denial

Maybe when I hit 40 I'll learn to deal

ArtOfCode

@Martijn You're pretending you're in with the kids very right. That's not the same thing as actually being it though...

Mnementh

2:33 PM

@Martijn: being old males you cool in another way. Not Marty McFly cool - but Donald Knuth cool

Martijn

Wait, Marty McFly was supposed to be cool?

only two more months to get to Back to the Future 2

Mnementh

@Martijn :-) (That was a joke in itself)

Martijn

Donnie Knuth is undeniably cool though

for some values of cool

Donnie would know which (and how to rigorously prove it)

Meta Data

1

Q: What should our site-description be?

We have mods now, that can change a lot of things, among them the site-description in the tour. It currently reads: Open Source Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people organizing, marketing or licensing open source development projects. It's built and run by you as part o...

discussion feature-request

Mnementh

2:58 PM

@Martijn I agree, I think he is cool in a way. But also meant as a joke, as many wouldn't agree.

Meta Data

3:44 PM

1

Q: Can we change "open source software" to "open source" in the placeholder text?

When I go to ask a question, I see the typical placeholder text. However, it appears like this: hardware and other non-software concepts are on topic here. So, can we change What's your open source software question? Be specific. to What's your open source question? Be specific.

feature-request

ArtOfCode

4:55 PM

Chat tells me it's time to bring Karma out again :)

user153821

Bot started.

ArtOfCode

~>listcommands

user153821

@ArtOfCode Commands: alive, utc, listcommands, help, cat, read, getcurrentusers, ping, flip, xkcdrandomnumber, xkcd, random, randomint, randomchoice, shuffle, detectlang, translate, translationchain, translationswitch, stop, disable, enable, ban, unban, delete, module

Free Radical

5:18 PM

Anybody around?

ArtOfCode

@FreeRadical Me :)

Martijn

Me too

and you, presumably

maybe we can also summon mnementh with the song of our people

@Mnementh

(It's a short song)

Mnementh

Yep. Nobody showed up here (in real life), so I have a bit time.

What's up?

Looking through the messages, @FreeRadical was asking, but isn't anymore in this room...

Free Radical

5:45 PM

I am here - but I dislike chat, as it is ephemeral and also seems to nurture cronyism to some extent.

Martijn

heh

Free Radical

@Martijn "heh" about what?

Martijn

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/23226635#23226635 <- just a few hours ago

Free Radical

@Martijn read through those messages from a few hours ago, and agree with you.

I think I've posted in all the current threads on meta today.

ArtOfCode

@Free - can you jump back over here when you've got a moment?

Free Radical

5:51 PM

Jumped

Martijn

the Q&A format doesn't do discussion well. That's both a bug and a feature. The number of times discussion is helpful is far less than it seems. That said, it has a time and a place, and there is also a social aspect (which is both a bug and a feature; it encourages a tighter bond between people, but only for a part of the community)

Trevor Clarke

6:38 PM

Hey guys

Wazzup

ArtOfCode

@TrevorClarke Hey Trevor :) Haven't seen you in a while

Trevor Clarke

Ehh

Idk...

Congrats on mod

Mnementh

The perfect one to show up now. :-) Hey @TrevorClarke

Trevor Clarke

I'm doing bronze medalian

It's like one of three things u need tk do to become a lifeguard

6 hours a day!

So

How is the site going

Mnementh

@TrevorClarke Some of your early questions got newer answers, in part probably better than the early answers which you accepted. Would you mind take another look at your early questions and reconsidering the answers and maybe change your accepted answer if better answers are available now?

Trevor Clarke

6:50 PM

I gotta go to swimming from 4-10 pm (toronto time) but I will become active again starting tomorrow or the next day!

ArtOfCode

@TrevorClarke I'm glad to hear it :)

Mnementh

@TrevorClarke That's fine. All I ask is, that you give newer answers a look and a chance to earn to be accepted answers if they outdo the already accepted answer.

And I'm happy hearing someone is going to be more active again, we had too much people leaving so far.

Trevor Clarke

Well idk... Il try seems like no one has been active (I expected to be like #15 in terms of rep)

In two weeks I'm going on a road trip to Boston so I may slow down .. I think we still need to grow our username and promote this site

Mnementh

7:07 PM

@TrevorClarke There are a lot of new users since the start of the free beta. But as the overall number of questions was going down, they only earned a few hundred reputation each.

user153821

8:37 PM

Bot terminated.

Meta Data

0

Q: Quality Cleanup Initiative - Help us improve our quality

There are a number of posts hanging round on Open Source which aren't as good as they could be. Some are missing information, some are misleading, some are wrong. Many of these are from our seed questions in the private beta, and that's to be expected - I'm not blaming people for this. However, ...

discussion featured question-quality answer-quality

ArtOfCode

I'm almost expecting an influx of flags now, as people flag old things they find

Mnementh

8:53 PM

Should be manageable. Was there any new flag since we got modded yesterday?

If the community grows the policy can be changed as needed

ArtOfCode

A whole 0.

Come on guys, give us something to do ;)

Mnementh

This could be interpreted as an call to make trouble :-)