last day (18 days later) » 

16:41
@Robert hi, I believe you need an invite before you can talk here
This ping should be enough. I also gave you two upvotes to make sure you meet the 20 reputation threshold - not strictly kosher, but I promised you that we'll help you no matter what happens to the question itself
I live in Europe, so I'm typically online until 9 PM UTC. Ping me when you're here.
I intend to repurpose this room also for a more general discussion whether we want a question of the type you started, and if yes, what format it should take
you can partake or ignore it, as you like
2
Q: Should we curate a list of recipe sites/ways to search for recipes?

JefromiRecipe requests are common enough that we have a custom close reason for it. Unfortunately, when we close these questions, we don't really help the user at all, not even by pointing them to a better place to look. Sometimes friendly users add a comment about searching, but that's not really somet...

This is the relevant meta question. My reaction is quite wordy, so I wanted to describe it here and hear the reactions before I can condense it into a Meta answer
So, first of all, I agree that a list of recipe resources endorsed by the community would be a good thing to have, and I'm willing to work towards it
17:12
The problem is that the earlier attempts at big lists on Stack Overflow ended in a very sorry state
For those who don't know about them, Math still has a Big List allowed rule. See the result with your own eyes:
206
Q: A challenge by R. P. Feynman: give counter-intuitive theorems that can be translated into everyday language

AgClThe following is a quote from Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman . The question is: are there any interesting theorems that you think would be a good example to tell Richard Feynman, as an answer to his challenge? Theorems should be totally counter-intuitive, and be easily translatable to everyd...

Many of the people in this room will know the problems, some won't, so I'll reiterate:
1. People who came to read the answers won't read them. It's just too much.
2. People who came to post an answer won't read them either, so they will frequently post duplicates
The book posts on Stack Overflow have long since been deleted, but here is a screenshot of one of them
So if we want a list that works, we absolutely have to resolve these problems and not repeat SO's error
Ah yes, and problem 3: because nobody reads all answers, voting happens only on the few ones which get read, so the few oldest ones. Nobody notices the newest one and so nobody votes on them.
We have one list so far which has done quite well on our site
106
Q: Translating cooking terms between US / UK / AU / CA / NZ

JoeThis post is an attempt to keep track of the terms that differ between dialects of English or exist in some dialects but not others: British / Australian / Canadian / American / etc. Please note that Canada may be difficult to classify, as some regions (especially near the southern border) use U...

The critical success factor here is, in my eyes, the list being curated
It has a bunch of answers, but nobody reads these anyway
instead, Joe takes care of entering a minimal amount of information in a highly structured way into the question body
this keeps the list readable and a useful reference
My first though yesterday was to emulate this format and have a question with one curator who enters all titles in the body
and it is what Jefromi suggests in the Meta question too
but by now, I think that this is not so good an idea either
the difference is that, with Joe's list, there is no question that an entry belongs to the list
If we do that with the books, we have the problem: which ones get onto the list and which don't?
Solution 1.1: we have a "curated list" format and it gets updated with anything the users suggest in the answers
the problem: we'll get suggestions of crap and self-promotion
Solution 1.2: we have a "curated list" format and it gets updated with only what the curator decides to put there
it will be perceived as very unfair and one-sided by the readers, totally in conflict with the SO model
Solution 1.3: like 1.1, but only answers with a certain number of upvotes get into the q body
the problem is that, once we get a sufficient number of answers, nobody will notice the new ones because the old ones will have too many votes and will be hidden
17:32
@rumtscho Could we put together the list (we'll get back to that part in a sec) and have a way to select the default answer under the off topic category. Something like "this question is off topic because we do not accept recipe questions but we have compiled a list if resources that may be helpful to you" and then the list. That way we provide the resources but stay within the format.
@Cindy it won't be possible to do this automatically, because these requests are closed as too broad, not as off topic
and the "too broad" close reason does not get a custom text, it is the same across all sites
but anybody noticing such a question will be able to post the link manually in a comment, of course
Solution 1.4: We could have regular events outside the question where the next batch of additions is chosen
e.g. a chat event once every 2 months
but morale will fall if nobody turns up :(
Would it be possible to have that text formatted so that everyone would use the same text/list in a comment?
@Cindy no, not for everybody
if you use a user script for these comments, you can copy a version you like and use it consistently. But there is no guarantee that others will do that.
There just isn't a place in the Stack Exchange software for this type of canned comment
Could it be set up to flag for a moderator so that you guys could use the agreed upon text and add it?
@Cindy no, there are no automatic flags for that. Anybody who knows enough of the custom to start such a flag manually could simply leave the comment instead.
It works like this: once the fifth person clicks "close" choosing the "too broad" reason, the question is closed. It gets a text on the definition of "too broad" which is the same across all sites.
There is no place in that process to say "this is a special type of too broad question, so something special should be triggered"
I am curious why you are asking this, actually
is there a problem you see with manually added links?
I will continue writing up my thoughts on solutions, but don't be taken aback by that, I'm still paying attention to you @cindy
I have seen three solutions to the poll problem on Stack Exchange which function more or less, maybe we can draw inspiration from one of these
17:43
Understood. But I was thinking of using the "other" flag reason, leaving a comment for the moderators, and then one of you guys enter the agreed upon text. Simply to assure that the text/list used is consistent. Re the manually added links, that's fine. But again if the mods had a pre-formatted message with links it would ensure consistency. As you noted before, even if we have it pre-formatted there is no guarantee that all users will use it.
The first, and least likely to work, is to use the moderation interface instead of the question interface
@Cindy First, this means somehow forcing users to vote to close as "other" on something they have been educated is "too broad", and users don't go with such suggestions normally. They typically even resist the more obvious categorizations.
So in practice, even if we ask them to do that, it's unlikely that they will do it.
And second, why is consistency important?
Back to the solution list, for completeness: 2.x can be about ideas similar to the election functionality. I am certain the team won't let us use the actual question type for that, but maybe somebody will use it as an inspiration. I can't come up with any good ideas about that, but I'm reserving the number for completeness
Then 3: there is the voting on community ads
It seems to work more or less
It employs a strict format of having 1) a single suggestion per answer, and 2) a single picture in the answer body, zero text. So even a list of 30 of them at once is quite scannable.
I think that we can emulate this by using 1 book title per answer and nothing else
so 3.1: a question with multiple answers, each of them kept to a single book title. Extra info can go into comments, but not into the main body.
The curator will have to be a moderator who can delete duplicate entries
If we choose this option, I can take the role of being the curator
The next solution: do away with the question completely
3.2 make community ads instead of a question
a community ad can endorse whatever resource we like, not just a site
we can make a community ad about a book, about a blog, whatever.
so we can simply start putting our favorite books into the Community ad thread and they will start appearing on the side bar once they get enough upvotes
It will require the author put in some work of creating the image
but I think this is actually good, because one of the problems of "big list" is that it is way too easy to add one more answer where there are already too many good ones
increasing the friction of adding an answer will help with that
The third thing to emulate will be the Photography thread for header picture selection
Each month, they open a new thread in Meta for beautiful photography
they post one picture per answer
and the highest voted one ends up in their header
Well, to be honest, this what I never could figure out about the Area 51 recipe start-up. I never could figure out how people were going to ask for recipe ideas and still fit the SE format. I think you have some good starting ideas on how to tackle the issue.
4.1 make a monthly suggestions thread on Meta. Import all good suggestions of the month into a question on Main.
It will be lots of work, but maybe it is worth it
the important thing about this is that we get fresh suggestions each month, so the list of new suggestions is scannable and votes do their job
also, the already accepted answers don't get into the thread (actually, I'm sure we'll get many duplicate suggestions even if the thread is locked, but the curator can delete those) so after the classics have landed on the list, we will have a fair competition among the less known entries
The result could get imported into not one question body, but either 4.1.1 multiple answers under a question, structured by cathegory, e.g. "recipe databases", "food science books", "regional cuisine books" etc.
or 4.1.2 one of multiple questions, specialized by the categories suggested above
It will be hard to come up with mutually exclusive categories of course
so I favor 4.1.1
the question body can link to each of the categorized answers so people don't have to page through answer lists to find the category they need
18:02
Yes, I agree. I think the easier it is to find, the better. That's one of the big drawbacks to blogs and forums.
@Cindy yes, but it will require quite a bit of work to be kept structured
we can't rely on users providing information in the way we want it, they will be submitting suggestions which a curator is screening
we will probably keep the question edited by the curator only, I guess we'll have to delete other people trying to post something there
locking the question saves us from the mass of people driving by, at least
For a reminder, this is what a community ad thread looks like
8
Q: Community Promotion Ads - 2015

Grace NoteThe dawn of a new year, 2015, now approaches, or has already approached, either way it means that it is now time to reset our Community Promotion Ads! What are Community Promotion Ads? Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, in the right s...

And this is how Photography selects their image of the week
101
Q: Weekly Featured Image: Ongoing Contest

mattdmThis is the place to submit and vote on photos to be featured on the the main site. This contest should showcase your best quality work, demonstrating at least moderate skill with a camera and a general understanding of the artistic aspects of photography. Remember, the selected photo will be di...

Interesting, they have switched from one thread per week to a single thread covering all submissions, it seems
we should ask why
So, these are my thoughts above. None of them sounds like the perfect solution.
I'd like very much to hear what others think about them, and what are other possible solutions, or refinements of the existing ones.
Oh, I forgot, I can't star my own posts. I wanted to have an outline.
@Cindy could you please star all lines starting with a numbered suggestion, so the next person coming into the room can see them as a list?
Okay.
@Cindy thank you
Ah, one more example I wanted to show: SO tried a solution similar to 1.1 and then abandoned it, it is closed just like the other too broad ones.
249
Q: Language Books/Tutorials for popular languages

Craig HIt wasn't that long ago that I was a beginning coder, trying to find good books/tutorials on languages I wanted to learn. Even still, there are times I need to pick up a language relatively quickly for a new project I am working on. The point of this post is to document some of the best tutoria...

I'm posting it because it's still visible, not deleted.
And another thing: whichever solution we pick, there will be many votes going into it, but most models will have the work attributed to the curator. So the fair thing to do is to make the question community wiki
18:18
@rumtscho I'm confused -- we have a custom closer reason for recipe requests. All we have to do is edit it (well, retire it and create a new modified version) to include a link to the canonical question.
(sorry, scanning through trying to catch up)
@Jefromi I don't see this as a replacement of the recipe requests off topic reason.
Not replacement - link to resources at the end.
Recipe requests are off topic, go look for a recipe, yadda yadda. See this post for starting points.
The recipe requests are typically for a specific dish, "what is the best recipe for a vegetarian lasagna", so they are not covered by this list
@Jefromi I see. We can do that, sure.
I thought that Cindy is asking for a standard text to use when closing requests for cookbook recommendations
Whups, I might've misunderstood.
and these are closed as "too broad", not with a custom off topic reason
and we have no free slot for one more
18:21
Alternatively it can go to a meta post, probably more future-proof.
7
Q: Why are game recommendation questions off-topic?

JefromiThis is one of the reasons questions get closed on the site - why? How can I find answers to these questions if not here? Note: this is a canonical question, for linking when questions are closed. If you want to discuss anything about the policy, please look through the older questions on the to...

on the other hand, it is unlikely that the users will be confused if the exact text linking to this question differs between closed questions
(but less friendly if they just want the list of places to try looking)
I saw something else similar on another site, but can't remember now... arqade?
Close reason linking to another site: gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/172809/…
I will find it OK if in practice all cookbook request questions end up with links to the canonical list which are placed by hand. If the text differs somewhat, this doesn't make them less useful in my eyes.
Just to clarify, my thinking was more in line with Jefromi's idea.
Oof, how did this turn into books?
18:24
@Cindy I see. Sure, if it already fits one of the custom close reasons, or if we find that we need a "cookbook request" close reason more important than a "recipe request" close reason and swap it, I would put the link in the custom text
I definitely don't want to do books; that's clearly way way too big to deal with.
Large recipe sites is a lot more manageable.
@Jefromi ah, you wanted sites? I didn't realize that
2
Q: Should we curate a list of recipe sites/ways to search for recipes?

JefromiRecipe requests are common enough that we have a custom close reason for it. Unfortunately, when we close these questions, we don't really help the user at all, not even by pointing them to a better place to look. Sometimes friendly users add a comment about searching, but that's not really somet...

most requests we've had in the past were about any kind of resource, not just a site
I did put ways to search in, but I didn't mean in the sense of "here are all the books you could look in".
18:25
i probably didn't make it clear. But also, I was thinking we were talking about recipe requests and books or links as solutions.
Just in case we wanted to tack on: try Google, try going to the library and looking for a book about the right cuisine, etc.
I automatically assumed that we want to go all the way and give what the users want, and not the subset they asked for this time
Oh, no, I don't want to give anyone what they want.
More seriously, I figured we could do the smaller manageable piece and it'd be better than nothing.
List of books is as bad as list of blogs, but list of databases might at least be worth trying.
> Where do you look for recipes?
> make something specific, or just looking for new ideas, I use the internet exclusively for recipes. So far I've found recipes online to be hit or miss.
This is from the original version of the recent closed question
this is why assumed that we are talking about something more than just Internet sites
also, why would sites be more manageable?
Oh, I only read the edited version.
Restricted to large sites (not blogs) it's just a much smaller number.
18:29
And how do you determine what is a blog and what isn't?
I dunno, maybe it's still just way too much.
I do, by fiat, because otherwise I quit my job as curator? :)
I'm deliberately trying to avoid setting down some really strict criteria right now without having seen examples.
The problem is that users will still want a small list of the "ten best" or such, and at the same time everybody will want to see their Nr. 1 personal favorite on it
I had no intent of making a ten best.
Neither do I
Roughly, I want sites big enough that, within some context at least ("desserts", "Indian food") you can go and search for the thing you had in mind and you'll have a good chance of finding something.
18:31
SmittenKitten would fit that and yet it's a typical blog
This puts you beyond even the really prolific long-term bloggers.
Nope.
then I misunderstood your description
You already know a dish you want to make.
You want a site to go to that'll give you a big chance of finding a recipe for that dish.
OK, so you mean a situation where the list might end up listing every member of the set, but at the same time making the set so small that it fits in one question body?
Okay, just to clarify the earlier conversation, we are talking about recipe requests, right? Not trying to be difficult, just want to be sure everyone is on the same page.
18:33
@Cindy no, resources requests. Not recipes requests.
Yes, I was intending this to be useful for recipe requests. (Probably also for future browsing, but yeah.)
And it seems that we are not even on the same page for that.
It's a list of resources that are useful to redirect people to when they make a recipe request.
I wouldn't close a "I need a lasagna recipe" as a duplicate of that
Not for duplicates!
18:34
I would close "what is your favorite place to find recipes" as a duplicate
For suggesting in comments, and possibly in a recipe request close reason.
@Jefromi yes, OK
I was more thinking in terms of "which need do we fill" than in terms of "where we link it"
I think that your suggestion is smaller than what I had in mind, which is better
we can take a baby step and see if it works, as opposed to biting off a huge piece and later realizing we can't chew it
Yeah. I'm definitely not interested in volunteering for maintaining a 2000 item list in Q&A format.
If it works well and we get requests for books and blogs, we can try doing it, using experience we've gained from the smaller database question
or we might decide that we don't want to do it after all :)
Books/blogs I think would have to be really heavily restricted and categorized still, if it's going to be manageable, and the limiting factor is going to be amount of curator time available.
18:37
or also request that a whole new mod gets elected for this task only
ghhhkkk
I'm brainstorming here, don't wonder if many of my ideas turn out to be trash
But yeah, if anything related sounds feasible after trying this, I'm all for it.
I definitely don't like us being unnecessarily restrictive.
@Jefromi no, but you are right that anything remotely workable is a ton of effort
and effort for one person. Or maybe two, if we do the monthly hit charts and change it every month
but it won't work if we let each user touch the final result
Anyway, for this bit, possibly the best thing to do is just for me to start collecting sites from people in chat and make sure it seems sane. Assuming it does I can go write up an actual question with a decent starting point.
18:42
@Jefromi about you writing it up: I tossed it out as a challenge yesterday in the expectation that you'd say "no, it's too much work" and it would all get forgotten :)
Ehhh, it doesn't sound that bad, everyone will forget about it eventually and it won't be a lot of work anymore.
Now that you agree to do it, I will do my best to help you, of course. Don't want to heap all of it on your shoulders.
A single "project owner" is probably the best, because then it is clearer how it works. But I won't leave you alone with it.
And yes, I agree that after some time, it's likely to only resurface rarely.
Look at Joe's list, it's large and useful, but I haven't seen it around for quite some time before this week.
Yeah, that's a really nice list.
Ah yes, about your question:
some of the best resources are in other languages of course, and we'll certainly get people complaining if we don't list them
Some of the answers should maybe be consolidated back into the question...
18:47
just ignore?
Hum... I dunno, it's probably often useful to list them and mark the language they're in?
(possibly categorize by language)
I deleted the muffin/cupcake answer
the others seem to add value over the part which is already incorporated in the quetsion
Do we want to stay away from blogs and forums? Also, had a thought that after Jefromi has a list compiled, if it's too long we could vote for the best couple in their respective categories. (Just if necessary to keep the list to a reasonable length.) Or you guys could decide on which are best.
@Cindy "best" is a very slippery concept
@rumtscho There's also a zillion comments and I think some of what's in the answers is probably still redundant... I asked Joe to flag anything he wants there, since he'd know better.
18:53
True.
Yeah, I'm not sure how we'd manage those votes - ask throwaway meta questions? Usually we're lucky if we get more than 5 people voting on something...
It's a nice idea but I don't know if we can pull it off.
@Jefromi yes, I also looked at the comments, but didn't feel like sorting out which need to disappear
Probably not the best word choice. (Best.)
And yes, definitely stay away from blogs and forums; we want structured things where you can search and get one page with one recipe on it.
the remaining answers are already mentioned in the comments briefly, but I think that the extra info in the answers is interesting nevertheless
18:55
And we want a single site to cover lots of ground, not just what a single person has made and blogged about, as prolific as they may be.
I already asked in main chat. I think it matches up pretty well with what y'all were saying here.
also the gas marks are not up in the question body, but I find them OK there, as they are a long list which is not that interesting to the core audience
@Jefromi yes, I saw it
there used to be a quesiton with "favorite resources"
@Jefromi I was thinking that you may want to add that to your suggestion request.
I once started deleting very old closed questions, the way they tell us to do housekeeping
It does say "database type sites", but okay I'll be extra clear.
but left a few which seemed interesting, so might have left that one undeleted, even though it has been closed for ages
14
Q: What are some good recipe resources?

Adam ShiemkeWhen closing questions that ask for recipes, I try to add a comment explaining why, and I would like to point to a resource for recipes. Is there any advice we can give to these people? I usually use Google to find recipes, but are there any more relevant resources that you know of that deliver ...

18:57
Aha I will select the big stuff from there, thank you
Don't get too eager for results; I might wait til I'm back at work with a big monitor next week to start seriously working on it.
Don't worry, I'm not too hurried to do it
just wanted to get the discussion done while it's fresh
Ah, another thing
For some time now, I've been thinking that we maybe also can start allowing focused resource asking, a la software recs
5
A: Can you ask questions about equipment recommendations?

rumtschoThis is one of those "off topic" areas which is (mostly) regulated across the network. Just like "big list" questions are not accepted anywhere with a few notable exceptions, so are "shopping recommendation" questions not accepted by default, based on Jeff's blog post, with some sites explicitly ...

This is how I see it
basically, if the OP knows what he wants and can describe it (the opposite of "tell me which is best"), the questions tend to work
not recipes of course, but books
Without thinking too hard about it, I agree, I'd like to help people with things like that.
Books are a bit broader than equipment though, maybe?
The criteria are not about broadness
it is a choice vs decision problem
Right, but broadness is what makes things turn awful.
whenever the problem is choice, "I already found 50 on the market and don't know which to pick", then it's awful
if an OP can write a question about a book such that you can look at a list of books on Amazon and not recognize which fits the criteria, then it's OK
Jay
Jay
19:03
I think recommendations are ok to ask for if the op list exactly the qualities they are looking for
In fact there's hints of broadness criteria in what you're saying - the "which one should I choose among many" has many possible answers, while discovering something which meets relatively specific criteria has fewer possible answers.
@Jefromi yes, but I see the broadness as a side effect and not as the main villain
so we can concentrate on the main villain
which is that a person wants us to choose for him because he has no idea what he needs. Well, we can't do that.
mmm, so give me an example of a good discovery question for cookbooks.
Bonus points if it's a question a real person would ask, not one of us who's already unconsciously thinking about broadness all the time :)
@Jefromi "Is there a book on Tamil cuisine, available in English, but collected from native cooks, and with recipes adaptable to a gluten-free diet"?
haha okay sure
19:06
I actually wrote one in the far past before I was a moderator
I think nobody has closed it since because nobody has looked at it :)
Book about flavor pairings?
Jay
Jay
did you get a tumbleweed badge :)
5
Q: Good book on English/British cuisine

rumtschoI am looking for a good book on British cuisine, and I have a specific type of book in mind. I tried looking on Amazon, but I couldn't determine whether a given book offers what I want. I am looking for a book which is more of a good read than a recipe collection. I actually intend to curl up ...

I didn't read it now before linking it here, I have to look at it and see if I'd still keep it open
I think most people are going to tend to have questions without a lot of restrictions - normal diet, they'll say "good/reliable/authentic" instead of "native cooks".
@Jefromi we can still close these
My point wasn't to allow all recommendations, but the ones which are specific enough
19:08
But... if we close everything that people would ask in practice anyway, how much good are we really doing?
Jay
Jay
your question is definitely specific enough to be left open imo
if nobody comes up with a question about a book which is specific enough, then we'll have to close 100% of our book questions
Sure. It's just seeming kind of hypothetical.
but I wouldn't want to restrict the theoretical possibility of somebody coming up with an answerable book question on the ground of "it isn't going to happen anyway"
Yup, agreed. Just not sure how much headroom there is there.
19:10
if it turns out that there is none, nobody has lost much
I think that my second sentence sums it up
> I tried looking on Amazon, but I couldn't determine whether a given book offers what I want
Must run for now. Catch you guys in a bit. :) You guys know a lot more about this stuff than I do by far but, if there is any of the work that I can do, I will be more than happy to help out.
If that is true, be it about a book or something else, we let it stay open
simple enough to be enforceable, I think. And should also weed out the bad ones. Not without grumbling, but users are already grumbling anyway.
I'll write up a Meta question about it then
Yup all sounds good.
but it won't be today, it's already quite late
Thank you for this chat
Yup thanks for helping out with stuff!
 
4 hours later…
23:16
@rumtscho thanks for inviting me to the conversation. I asked the question as a result of some pondering I was doing the other day about how many bad recipes are prominent on the internet and even well reviewed, and it just occurred to me that people who cook for a living must have a better way, and I was simply ignorant of it. I imagined my question would have an obvious answer, like "what, you use all-recipes? Everyone who knows that they are doing uses _____."
I was a little naive, but it appears I'm not the only one who has asked. I look forward to whatever comes of this.
23:32
@Robert No, we've definitely gotten plenty of recipe requests and variations on "where do I find X", it's just that it's pretty hard to come up with good answers in the format of the site. Hopefully we'll manage to make at least something somewhat useful.

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