Off topic is on topic.

Wad Cheber

2:02 AM

rand al'thor

Wad Cheber

Legend: The lake's name comes from a treaty between two neighboring tribes of Native Americans, and means "You fish on your side, I'll fish on my side, and nobody fish in the middle". Truth: It means something like "Fishing Place at the Boundaries -- Neutral Meeting Grounds" or "Lake divided by islands".

rand al'thor

@WadCheber Ahh, I've heard of that one!

Wad Cheber

?

rand al'thor

@WadCheber Been there.

Wad Cheber

2:08 AM

@randal'thor My ex lives just across from the lake.

SSumner

What's up guys? Looks like I missed an eventful day

Wad Cheber

@SSumner Mos Eisley was nuked from orbit.

SSumner

So I gathered

Wad Cheber

1 hour ago, by Shog9

PSA: Mos will remain frozen until the SciFi mods decide otherwise. ALL mods have been instructed to freeze any SFF chatroom if a valid flag is raised unless/until a SciFi mod is able to intervene.

@SSumner Also, someone flagged Shog.

SSumner

So basically no talking about anything remotely controversial

rand al'thor

2:11 AM

@WadCheber Really? :-D

Wad Cheber

@SSumner So it seems. When Mos Eisley thaws, this room will become the place where people are sent when they insist on rehashing pointless debates about off topic crap.

@randal'thor yessir. Axelrod did it, and Richard validated.

It was removed.

He said something that ended with "STFU", and a flag immediately appeared.

rand al'thor

@WadCheber Shog's message was removed?

Wad Cheber

@randal'thor Yep.

rand al'thor

Did he get a 30-minute suspension?!

(I assume that's actually impossible.)

Wad Cheber

No.

CandiedMango

2:14 AM

CMs and Mods sometimes become snarky

SSumner

Yeah I've noticed

Mike Edenfield

in Agents of Nothing, 4 hours ago, by Richard

I daringly validated it and it got system-deleted

so no, it doesn't appear to be possible.

SSumner

@richard you are my hero

2

CandiedMango

It happened between me and shog on that suspension post if you remember @randal'thor I know you saw my comment. He edited a comment after he posted one because it was snarky and a personal attack.

Mike Edenfield

I can't imagine what reason he might have had to be snarky...

CandiedMango

2:17 AM

If you're referring to my conversation I was exceedingly polite and formal.

rand al'thor

@CandiedMango I saw a conversation between you and him in comments there, but can't remember what was said. Frankly I'm surprised he'd admit to saying anything bad enough that he felt he had to edit.

CandiedMango

As for what happened earlier I have no idea.

Wad Cheber

rand al'thor

Who's this Nathan?

Foreign mod?

Mike Edenfield

@WadCheber yeah but not chat-suspension :)

rand al'thor

2:20 AM

in Agents of Nothing, 2 hours ago, by Mike Edenfield

if puzzling:se outlasts sff:se I'm gonna be pissed.

SSumner

This ^^^

rand al'thor

@MikeEdenfield Don't worry: Puzzling is on a short road to being shut down after they kicked me out.

Wad Cheber

@MikeEdenfield I know, I was just showing @randal'thor

Mike Edenfield

@randal'thor we are apparently on a tiny footpath.

Wad Cheber

@MikeEdenfield Not the site, just Mos.

SSumner

2:21 AM

To be fair, I doubt they'd shut down the whole site, maybe just chat and hold users on a tighter leash

rand al'thor

Puzzling used to be on a short road to graduation (10 Q/day consistently when I was around), but now it's only 5 Q/day (Needs Work according to Area 51) and hardly anyone is active anymore.

Even Sockmaster has shut down his activity now that he's top user again.

</rant>

Wad Cheber

Shog has never questioned the validity of SF&F, but he did explicitly say "I consider Puzzling to be a joke"

SSumner

@randal'thor I think the fun police ruined puzzling

rand al'thor

@WadCheber He may well think the same of SFF. Both are 'fun' sites, not serious stuff like SO.

Mike Edenfield

puzzling got kinda old after I realized 90% of the questions are just fancily-worded trivia quizes.

Wad Cheber

2:24 AM

@randal'thor Maybe, but he's never said anything to that effect.

rand al'thor

@SSumner It was semi-ruined way back in December by the site mods explicitly trying to shut down 90% of the content. They were stopped by the CMs, and I managed to get the site back on the road to success again, before a CM talked the mods into kicking me out.

@WadCheber YET...

Wad Cheber

:)

→ 10 messages moved to Trash

Mike Edenfield

probably not. but I do get kinda frustrated when we get yelled at for trying to determine what the rules are under which we operate.

Wad Cheber

Yeah, technically, the room was frozen because Shog didn't like the way we answered his question.

:)

Mike Edenfield

that was just the second time

Wad Cheber

2:29 AM

That was the time that counted.

rand al'thor

Timeout =/= frozen, btw.

When it was in timeout, it still appeared on the rooms list. Now it's completely dead until such time as a mod sees fit to resuscitate it.

Wad Cheber

at first, it seemed to be a short term thing, then we answered his question incorrectly and the room was nuked.

@randal'thor They appear to be effectively the same.

rand al'thor

@WadCheber Nope - see my last message.

Wad Cheber

in Mos Eisley, 4 hours ago, by Shog9

This room was placed in timeout for 1 day; the topic of this room is "General discussion for http://scifi.stackexchange.com" - conversation should be limited to that topic.

in Mos Eisley, 2 hours ago, by Feeds

Shog9 has frozen this room.

@randal'thor Yep. See the word "effectively".

rand al'thor

Frozen is worse than timeout.

Mos Eisley is now invisible to everyone who doesn't know to click "show frozen/deleted rooms". Before the freeze, that wasn't the case.

Wad Cheber

2:32 AM

@randal'thor It went frozen, unfrozen, timeout, frozen. The effect, for people trying to chat there, was the same: they couldn't do so. Thus, it is effectively the same.

Either way, you can't chat there, and what good is a room you can see but not chat in?

rand al'thor

Effectively, from the point of view of a non-mod non-RO trying to talk there, yes.

Wad Cheber

And bizarrely, @DrRDizzle managed to sneak a message in after timeout.

rand al'thor

Relevant:

3

Q: Should we split the chat into on- and off-topic rooms?

A user has proposed effectively(*) splitting our site's chat room into on- and off- topic sub-rooms. A grassroots attempt to populate or otherwise prove obvious utility of the room was given about two weeks or so to show something for itself. I'm posting this question to get a feeling from the c...

Wad Cheber

@randal'thor Shog suggested the same thing.

Joshua

brb, getting smarter!

Wad Cheber

2:36 AM

in Mos Eisley, 4 hours ago, by Shog9

If some of you must, must, absolutely must discuss topics which are known to be inflammatory, start your own chatroom, go there, and speak to each other as though you respect each other's opinions.

rand al'thor

@WadCheber Welcome to "Off topic is on topic", Wad. Please read the name.

;-)

@WadCheber You'll notice it was strongly rejected on GameDev.

So, ~~who else thinks the US should have stricter gun control laws?~~ er, I mean, eaten any tacos recently?

In other news, I have finally overtaken Kevin in rep.

CandiedMango

About anything

I don't tend to pay attention, I just make ridiculous statements part way through

rand al'thor

Hi @DVK!

CandiedMango

Just my observation, can't be false.

Wad Cheber

I bicker about nonsense, but I haven't talked politics in a long time.

CandiedMango

2:44 AM

When I say anything I do not mean everything.

rand al'thor

@WadCheber What a good dog :-P

StackExchange

0

Q: could clara become hybrid by joining w the Library database?

Could Clara join somehow as physical embodiment of all that dat storage and, then, be able to "save" the Doctor's memories (which he is losing, maybe, because his brain is normal Timelord size for 12 regens)?

doctor-who

Wad Cheber

rand al'thor

@StackExchange Unclear what OP is smoking (I think?)

DVK

@randal'thor You shoud ask on Meta to make that official VTC reason. We have had many questions that clearly fit the wording you used.

Himarm

2:46 AM

I THOUGHT THE POINT OF THIS ROOM WAS TO SAY WHATEVER WE WANTED IN A SAFE PLACE

HALP

DVK

@randal'thor Woohoo! @Richard next?

rand al'thor

@Himarm How safe is safe? Don't forget the top pinned message from Shog ------->

Mike Edenfield

ah crap.

phantom42

@Himarm the point of shunting the inflammatory discussion elsewhere is 1) to not annoy general chatters with the same arguments over and over and 2) if the room gets shut down, it's not the main room.

rand al'thor

@DVK I've been ahead of Richard in the weekly leagues all through this week, and am hoping to be so again by the end of today :-)

Wad Cheber

2:49 AM

→ 5 messages moved to Trash

@randal'thor Yep.

CandiedMango

@randal'thor You could be the first person to knock @Richard off the monthly number 1 since his inception

Wad Cheber

2 hours ago, by Shog9

PSA: Mos will remain frozen until the SciFi mods decide otherwise. ALL mods have been instructed to freeze any SFF chatroom if a valid flag is raised unless/until a SciFi mod is able to intervene.

Mike Edenfield

can we all calm down and play with the bot?

rand al'thor

%%randomxkcd

Joshua

@randal'thor randomxkcd? I don't know that game. How about a nice game of chess?

Mike Edenfield

2:53 AM

%%xkcd beer

%%I'LLTAKENOFOR500

%%listcommands

@Richard - in case you're still online, answer accepted. Simply slipped my mind, nothing wrong with the answer.

Joshua

@CandiedMango I'LLTAKENOFOR500? I don't know that game. How about a nice game of chess?

Commands:
alive, utc, listcommands, help, cat, read, getcurrentusers, ping, flip, random, randomint, randomchoice, shuffle, detectlang, translate, translationchain, translationswitch, stop, disable, enable, ban, unban, delete, module, define, sort, accio, modcount, seen, afk, back, users, games, globalthermonuclearwar, tictactoe, chess, xkcd

rand al'thor

2:54 AM

%%games help

Joshua

Games Menu:

1) Tic-Tac-Toe: %%tictactoe <# of players>

2) Chess: %%chess new

3) Global Thermo-nuclear War: %%globalthermonuclearwar

Wad Cheber

Read bolded portion.

Joshua

@randal'thor Would you like to play a game?

DVK

@randal'thor UH HUH! We all know how THAT ends! And we don't even have Matthew Broderick around!

rand al'thor

@WadCheber Here you are, proving my point by insisting on having the last word :-)

Mike Edenfield

2:55 AM

%%xkcd api

Joshua

ACCESS LIMITS: Clients may maintain connections to the server for no more than 86,400 seconds per day. If you need additional time, you may contact IERS to file a request for up to one additional second.

CandiedMango

@WadCheber Seriously dude.

Wad Cheber

Technically, you're having the last word, because quotes. :)

rand al'thor

%%ping somerandomguy

Joshua

@randal'thor @somerandomguy

Wad Cheber

2:56 AM

@CandiedMango No, humorously.

CandiedMango

%%ping @randal'thor

Joshua

@CandiedMango @@randal'thor

rand al'thor

%%sort DVK, Richard, WadCheber

Joshua

@randal'thor DVK,Richard,WadCheber isn't enrolled at Hogwarts... I don't deal with muggles.

Himarm

man im not drunk enough for this chat tonight

Mike Edenfield

2:56 AM

%%xkcd the moon

rand al'thor

%%sort Slytherincess

Himarm

its so downsy

Joshua

@MikeEdenfield More than one comic found; try %%xkcd <#> with one of these numbers:

1456: On the Moon

DVK

@Joshua What the hell kind of syntax is @@user?

Wad Cheber

Joshua

2:56 AM

1291: Shoot for the Moon

CandiedMango

I'm not drunk enough for this chat this midday

Mike Edenfield

SRSLY GUYZ I implemented the xkcd search and no one's paying attention.

Joshua

@randal'thor Slytherincess is enrolled at a different wizarding school!

rand al'thor

@DVK CandiedMango did it wrong.

Mike Edenfield

@DVK it's just sticking @ in front of whatever you said. I didn't write that one.

CandiedMango

2:57 AM

@randal'thor :(

rand al'thor

%%xkcd stack exchange

Joshua

@randal'thor No matching comic found.

CandiedMango

%%xkcd reddit

rand al'thor

%%xkcd mos eisley

Joshua

@CandiedMango No matching comic found.

@randal'thor No matching comic found.

CandiedMango

2:57 AM

%%xkcd mike

rand al'thor

%%xkcd rand

Joshua

@CandiedMango No matching comic found.

@randal'thor Too many matching comics, be more specific please!

DVK

@MikeEdenfield I would but I'm stopping myself from reading XKCD by a force of will. That's like TVTropes in terns of addictiveness.

Mike Edenfield

%%xkcd random

Joshua

@MikeEdenfield More than one comic found; try %%xkcd <#> with one of these numbers:

1277: Ayn Random

CandiedMango

2:58 AM

Can I come out of the winchester now? Has it all blown over?

Joshua

1210: I'm So Random

221: Random Number

DVK

@Joshua The bot really should be taught the @Slytherincess OWNS the bloody wizarding school. ALL of them.

rand al'thor

%%sort DVK

Joshua

DVK belongs in....... House Slytherin!

SSumner

%%globalthermonuclearwar

Joshua

2:59 AM

@SSumner Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?

rand al'thor

@Joshua :-O @DVK do you really?

Mike Edenfield

i think I broke something, it says that "no enrolled" line way more than it really shoudl.

CandiedMango

%%sort randal'thor

Wad Cheber

Joshua

rand al'thor belongs in....... House Slytherin!

SSumner

2:59 AM

@Joshua no

DVK

@randal'thor According to Pottermore, Ravenclaw.

rand al'thor

@Joshua You are dead to me.

DVK

@randal'thor Having said that, I may have done well in Slytherin. I'm half Snape half Hermione personality wise.

CandiedMango

%%sort me

Joshua

@CandiedMango me isn't enrolled at Hogwarts... I don't deal with muggles.

CandiedMango

3:00 AM

%%sort CandiedMango

Joshua

@CandiedMango CandiedMango is enrolled at a different wizarding school!

DVK

@randal'thor Is a bot technically alive or dead?

Mike Edenfield

how the f@%$%&^$ does this room have 43 stars? ITS ONLY LIKE 3 HRS OLD

rand al'thor

@DVK Maybe it's undead?

@MikeEdenfield Welcome to SFF chat :-)

%%sort MikeEdenfield

Joshua

Mike Edenfield belongs in....... House Hufflepuff!

Catija

3:01 AM

@randal'thor You forgot to add "Have a star".

CandiedMango

@Joshua HAHAHA

Wad Cheber

@MikeEdenfield In part because room owners have unlimited stars.

UNLIMITED POWER!

►

rand al'thor

@WadCheber Oh no. Someone un-RO Wad.

SSumner

Is that true?

CandiedMango

@phantom42 WE SUMMON YOU

Catija

3:02 AM

@WadCheber Itty bitty living space?

Wad Cheber

@SSumner Yes. And we have 3 or 4 RO's.

Catija

Phenominal Cosmic Power, Ity Bity Living Space

►

rand al'thor

@CandiedMango Summoning phantoms doesn't tend to end well.

(phanti?)

Mike Edenfield

I think he got fed up with the whole lot of us and left.

rand al'thor

%%sort WadCheber

Joshua

3:03 AM

@randal'thor Wad Cheber is enrolled at a different wizarding school!

Feeds

Wad Cheber has added Joshua to the list of this room's owners.

Mike Edenfield

%%accio @phantom42

Joshua

<points wand at @phantom42> Aparecium!

rand al'thor

Does it always give the same answer for the same person?

Catija

@Joshua At least he's at a wizarding school?

phantom42

3:04 AM

rand al'thor

%%sort WadCheber

Mike Edenfield

no. it's entirely random

Joshua

Wad Cheber belongs in....... House Slytherin!

2

Feeds

Wad Cheber has removed Joshua from the list of this room's owners.

rand al'thor

%%sort randal'thor

Joshua

3:04 AM

@randal'thor rand al'thor is enrolled at a different wizarding school!

rand al'thor

@Joshua Yep, that works.

Mike Edenfield

@WadCheber I have a module for Joshua that lets him star things...

rand al'thor

@phantom42 Wad is getting out of hand; we needed another RO :-)

Wad Cheber

I'm afraid that making @Joshua an RO for real would make him go all Skynet on us,

→ 1 message moved to Trash

SSumner

So what's the most off-topic/on-topic discussion we can have?

The number of seeds produced by a dandelion growing on the north Side of mount Everest?

DVK

3:05 AM

@Joshua Uh. It's not nice to insult your own creator, Joshua!

Catija

@SSumner Surely we can find a more interesting off topic discussion.

SSumner

@dvk - as much as I agree with you, let's not bring it up again

@catija - but not a more off topic off topic discussion

Wad Cheber

@DVK Fair enough.

Catija

@SSumner What makes it so particularly off topic?

Wad Cheber

Gimme a minute

@DVK I'm not an RO in other rooms.

SSumner

3:08 AM

@catija - I dunno. It seemed off topic

CandiedMango

@randal'thor He also removed the stars on the comments of yours

rand al'thor

@CandiedMango Or someone did.

Maybe @phantom42 should de-RO Wad?

CandiedMango

@randal'thor aye!

SSumner

@mikeedenfield - there are three types of falsehoods: lies, damned lies, and statistics

Mike Edenfield

sorry, I'm doing in now too.

rand al'thor

3:10 AM

Moving swiftly along ... anyone read Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series?

Mike Edenfield

I'll stop

phantom42

@randal'thor i can if that's what everyone wants and wad is ok with it

Wad Cheber

→ 46 messages moved to Trash

Mike Edenfield

now that the bot can search xkcd, what else?

CandiedMango

@randal'thor no, any good?

Wad Cheber

3:12 AM

→ 2 messages moved to Trash

rand al'thor

@CandiedMango I dunno, I haven't either. But there's some free rep for anyone who has!

@MikeEdenfield Searching SE?

CandiedMango

@randal'thor Couldn't find anything on wikipedia ay? ;)

rand al'thor

%%modcount record?

Joshua

@randal'thor There are one Shog9, one bluefeet, 2 moderator(s), and 2 owner(s) in the room.

Mike Edenfield

@randal'thor working on that. I'm trying to impement the whole Stack API.

Joshua

3:13 AM

The current record is one Shog9, one Ana, one bluefeet, 18 moderator(s), and 1 owner(s)

Mike Edenfield

it's harder than I thought.

rand al'thor

@Joshua Not in this room it's not.

Wad Cheber

→ 9 messages moved to Trash

Mike Edenfield

not the API, implementing it in a bot in python.

rand al'thor

@CandiedMango I've done a lot of Googling for it, but without success.

CandiedMango

3:14 AM

@MikeEdenfield Make it recite the fresh prince theme

Mike Edenfield

i can do that.

flood control will make it sound like it's drunk

1 line every 5-10 seconds

Wad Cheber

Let the topic go. DVK is entitled to his opinion, but we don't need to discuss it.

DVK, I'm sorry I reacted badly.

3

As everyone, including myself, has said, I would be the worst mod ever.

Can we let it be?

rand al'thor

@WadCheber Good man.

Wad Cheber

Like him?

CandiedMango

@randal'thor Doesn't seem like my cup of tea

StackExchange

3:17 AM

0

Q: Did Gandalf know Bilbo had the One Ring?

From the movie, you can see that Gandalf knows Bilbo found something special during their adventure, but Bilbo did not tell him the truth in the end, nor did Gandalf pursue it. His final words seem to hint that he knows Bilbo has some treasure of significant power on him. At the point of their pa...

lord-of-the-rings the-hobbit the-one-ring

0

Q: Why did Mark Watney include a question mark in his hexadecimal code?

Not a duplicate of Why does Mark use Hexadecimal to communicate? ASCII can encode a question mark. Its code in hexadecimal is 3F. Since a question mark only appears once per question and most questions would be fairly long (i.e. many characters) why would Mark Watney waste precision (17 position...

the-martian

CandiedMango

I Approve this Message

Sigh...

@StackExchange Dupe!

@WadCheber SIGHMON

@DVK - As far as I can recall, the only other room (besides "Trash") that contains discussion, on my part, of the debacle, is Agents of Nothing. Whoever owns it can delete whatever is there. I'm not, so I can't.

DVK

3:19 AM

@randal'thor That is probably hardcoded to main room

@WadCheber Trash was the one where I saw the messages originally. Interestingly, where I'm prohibited from posting by room rules

Wad Cheber

@CandiedMango No, I deleted them, along with everything I myself said that was even tangentially related to the issue.

@DVK It's a room for deleted comments. No one actually chats there.

rand al'thor

@WadCheber @phantom42 is your man for that.

Mike Edenfield

@DVK Trash isn't a real room, I don't think anyone can post there.

CandiedMango

@WadCheber When I checked the messages were there but the stars weren't although I could not restar because I had already done so. But it doesn't matter

Wad Cheber

The only other option was to send it to the room of the same name that serves the same purpose, but for all of SE, which is seen by far more people.

DVK

3:22 AM

@MikeEdenfield Wad clearly can, since he did

Mike Edenfield

oh, you made your own Trash?

Wad Cheber

@CandiedMango I don't know why, but I had already deleted them when you said that.

Mike Edenfield

@DVK sorry. There's a "Trash" room on SE who's entire purpose is to dump "deleted" comments into. I thought that's where he was sending them.

CandiedMango

@WadCheber Weird! Probably screwed up.

Wad Cheber

@MikeEdenfield Yeah.

DVK

3:23 AM

@MikeEdenfield No, our own Trash. Don't ask. We have too many rooms that are all confusing

Wad Cheber

@DVK I moved deleted messages there. If you want to debate with a pile of what is basically garbage, I'd be happy to oblige.

Mike Edenfield

still, its the same idea. room owners can't delete messages, so they thrown them into Trash. you're not supposed to go read them.

DVK

@WadCheber Apology accepted provisionally (if you get your messages deleted from both other rooms).

Wad Cheber

Knock yourself out. It's an open room now. Argue with garbage.

@DVK ...

I CAN'T.

I literally do not have the ability.

DVK

@WadCheber Get room owners to do it? They do.

Wad Cheber

3:25 AM

@MikeEdenfield Mike, if you own AON, delete the messages.

Mike Edenfield

i do not.

@phantom42 is the only RO

Wad Cheber

So @phantom42, please delete the messages.

Thanks.

DVK

Mike only owns the bot that can start WWIII. He don't need to own no rooms

Mike Edenfield

so long as you both realize the "delete" means "move to Trash" where they won't be deleted....

Wad Cheber

I can only say "those messages should be deleted" in front of the guy who can delete them so many times.

@MikeEdenfield Exactly, which is why they can't be deleted without being flagged, but if we flag them, every room gets frozen, because...

3 hours ago, by Shog9

PSA: Mos will remain frozen until the SciFi mods decide otherwise. ALL mods have been instructed to freeze any SFF chatroom if a valid flag is raised unless/until a SciFi mod is able to intervene.

Mike Edenfield

3:27 AM

otherwise you're gonna have to wait for an SF&F moderator to wake up and deal with it without requiring outside intervention

Wad Cheber

Trash doesn't have an owner now, so even if it isn't handled by a mod, the room will automatically be deleted. I don't know how long that takes.

DVK

Can we just make @Slytherincess an owner of ALL rooms?

She clearly can use more absolute power

Wad Cheber

@DVK - I have done everything that is in my power to do now.