The Bridge

It has come up several times recently (more than usual) that PPCG differs from most of the other Stack Exchange sites in that it's not a Q&A site. People don't come here to ask a question because they have a problem, people come here to solve recreational challenges. The most valuable contributio...

nuts

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Q: Graduation Design Ideas

Programming Puzzles & Code Golf will someday graduate out of public beta, and it will get a new site design. Stack Exchange employees generally do all the design work and make the design decisions, but that doesn't mean we can't nudge them in the right direction when the time comes. This meta po...

discussion beta-status

Site customization is really, really hard

user15026

Puzzling's another one where it doesn't play by all the traditional rules

quartata

12:05 AM

You can see the kind of stuff here that would be "ideal" is practically infeasible

Frank

@Ash You're mentioning how SE is moving away from SO and give the rest of the network some love.

One of the first things they did was announce a generic templated design to use across all those sites.

quartata

It is, have you seen this new left-nav

It's awesome

@Frank I don't think you get how that works

user15026

I think part of the "cohesive design" thing is to kinda make it clear that we're all part of a bigger thing

quartata

the theming is still here

Frank

@quartata Yeah, I like it. I don't have to scroll up to the top anymore.

quartata

12:06 AM

The other sites, like PPCG, never had designs

So that's why they're "generic"

they always were

user15026

And to not have to take people away from like....much bigger needs just to stick pretty stickers on things

user15026

(big complicated messy stickers that make it hard to like...make sure the whole network works the same)

user15026

I don't love it, I'm going to miss the cool designs

Frank

@quartata I get exactly why they're doing it.

quartata

I'm not sure what we're missing here

user15026

12:07 AM

But It's not tenable.

quartata

Because, they pretty much look the same as they always did to me

just with the left-nav

Frank

And if I had to maintain them, I'd be doing exactly the same thing.

quartata

Math SE still has its LaTeX and nice banner

and badge icons

I mean, what things are missing

Frank

Depending on where you generally spend your time, a beta site or graduated, though, your viewpoint of the changes will be different.

quartata

You're right, I've spent most of my time on a beta site. But I've checked out the other ones that have gotten the left-nav, and they still look unique to me

I can tell what's what

Frank

12:08 AM

But, I think I got sidetracked from my grumpy old man rant. And I was just wrapping it up, too!

user15026

Maybe we don't need more grumpy rants, neh?

user15026

Like...we get it, we get where you stand, and obviously most of us do not agree in this room

Unionhawk

At the end of the day, making it so that more people are encouraged to contribute positively will result in better content.

Just, flat out

Frank

@Unionhawk I can't agree with that.

quartata

....what?

Frank

12:09 AM

Encouraging more new users to post will inevitably lead to increased work to clean it up.

Wipqozn

SE haven't really changed anything about its goal of being for quality content, they're just trying to make the new user experience better so that they eventually become regular high quality users.

Frank

Like I said, I was just going to wrap this up. We're not going to see eye to eye on this at all.

Wipqozn

The sites already have no shortage of shit content, so it's not like the current system was preventing that

user15026

@Frank did you miss his "contribute positively" bit there?

Frank

But I think it's important to understand that we all have a voice here, and that we are trying to work together. I have a hard time remembering that, sometimes.

@Ash No, because I don't believe it.

Unionhawk

12:13 AM

@Ash No he just thinks only an established cadre of old users can

Wipqozn

Also I went to Ikea for the first time and bought a new desk ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/S19022808

Frank

@Unionhawk Can you not strawman my position? Plz and thx.

Wipqozn

Simple little desk, which is what I wanted

I'm likely going to buy some new monitors and a monitor mount too

user15026

@Frank ...okay

Unionhawk

Like all of us here were perfectly formed as 10ks from the beginning, and also that's positive

user15026

12:14 AM

@Wipqozn Sometimes having the simple things is nice! :)

user15026

@Wipqozn faaaancy. How many monitors? :)

quartata

@Wipqozn real-life light mode

whoa

Something like that

12:15 AM

looks like you have robots holding your monitors

Ave

@Frank I'll be stealing ash's idea here, but look at me. I was a rather terrible user before. I'm not saying that I'm a good person now or something, but I have 15k rep now from my many answers and many questions, and I guess that's significant from a POV that puts content over users.

Wipqozn

@Ash Just two, and I'll need two brand new ones most likely to actually be able to mount them

Ave

People can and do change over time, especially if someone is around to help them out.

user15026

@Ave Plus, you've learned a lot and you've become so much more welcoming and kind and patient!

Wipqozn

But I might just buy one for now and sit an old one just on the desk

user15026

12:16 AM

Because we gave you that help, and now you give back, and that's stellar :)

Frank

@Ave And you didn't need special treatment, either. So, yeah, you're exactly what I want all users to be.

user15026

@Wipqozn The mount thing looks super neat, tho

Ave

saying "if your first contribution is bad then rest of them will be bad too" is very, very… I'unno. can't come up with a word.

user15026

@Ave Closeminded, maybe?

user15026

@Frank she did need a lot of patience and compassion, both on network and off.

Wipqozn

12:17 AM

@Ash they're actually really great for your neck. They only work on certain monitored, and they're about $50. Less for a single arm.

user15026

And that's all we wanna do here, is more of that, to get super cool contributors who stick around.

user15026

@Wipqozn cool beans.

Ave

I was a big mess.

user15026

I gotta replace my desk and my chair before I replace my monitors

Unionhawk

@Frank I'm sorry, which part did I get wrong about your position that new users being encouraged to contribute positively will actually make everything bad

user15026

12:18 AM

My chair first, although I balk at that because I don't even know how the heck to get a new chair into my house

Ave

@Ash I was thinking of ignorant, but closeminded sounds less like an insult so… yeah. Sounds good.

@Frank it actually feels so nice to be here.

wrong ping

that was aimed at @Ash's message that starts with "Plus,"

Frank

@Ave If a new users first contribution shows no signs of reading the rules, that doesn't mean their next one won't. That's the whole point of a user agnostic view.

@Unionhawk The part where you assume I think all new users are bad and I should feel bad.

Unionhawk

@Frank do you think we can shape people into quality contributiors

Frank

@Unionhawk Those that want to be, yes.

Unionhawk

And do you think there is value in this

quartata

12:23 AM

@Ave i cringe whenever i see my first answers

Wipqozn

@Frank To be honest I think the only users who will start contributing that didn't before will be users who spent enough time browsing the site looking for answers that they actually formed an opinion about the site already that it's unwelcoming. Those users will then start to contribute after more time on the site and they see things are changed. Aka the only new users this policy change brings in are users who do their research, aka the ones that write good content.

All those drive by users and people that don't take a minute to google their question probably won't even notice a difference

Frank

@Unionhawk Can't seem to find a good wording, but yes, within limits.

Ave

@quartata relevant

quartata

bwahahahahahaha

Wipqozn

Aka the amount of low quality content stays the same but the amount of higher quality content goes up

Unionhawk

12:26 AM

How I read your, user agnostic view, is 10k or 1, the only thing that matters is quality, which is partially true, but neglects this, what I consider key step, of trying to have a welcoming environment to try and help people create quality content

quartata

oh dear

oh dear me

Unionhawk

Curating quality content is easy

Frank

@Wipqozn Not sure I can follow your logic here. The only new people we'll get are those that think we currently suck?

Unionhawk

Curating quality users is hard

But it being hard doesn't mean it's not valuable

quartata

I can say that has never happened to me, although I know for a fact there's a certain (deleted now, it was up for at least a year) where I think I was sleep deprived and basically rather than making a tuple I concatenated a string and number together with a space and then split it

Unionhawk

12:28 AM

Not curating quality users, forming, I suppose

Memor-X

We have a potential cryptominer game that @MellowOnline1 messaged me about. Might take a peek at that. https://twitter.com/SidAlpha/status/1032049951495397376

Tweeted by SidAlpha on August 21, 2018 at 11:43 PM

Frank

@Unionhawk That I can agree with.

Memor-X

if it is then might as well considered Steam as a Cryptominer Distributor

Wipqozn

@Frank The ones we think we write good content but that we aren't welcoming. They only think we're not welcoming because they've spent time researching answers on the site.

Frank

Its a hard problem, and we've always had issues with trying to welcome new users. No disagreement with me on that point.

@Wipqozn And you don't think it'll lead to an influx of other users that don't care?

Wipqozn

12:30 AM

@Frank Basically I feel the only users who will even notice we've changed at all will be users who already do a lot of research anyways, which means they'll write good questions.

Ave

(it's sort of nice to see an argument about anything that doesn't immediately devolve into name calling, tbh)

Wipqozn

@Frank nah because I think those users are already here and don't care.

Ave

@Wipqozn this. I get very anxious whenever I post a q or a, on arqade or on any SE, especially if I don't have any experience on said SE. I think that this change will help with that at least a bit.

Wipqozn

@Frank users who don't care won't even notice we changed and will continue making low quality content, but users who do care will notice we changed and start making quality content

Frank

@Wipqozn Not sure I can agree with that view, but I can understand it.

Wipqozn

12:33 AM

That last message basically summarizes how I feel

Frank

@Wipqozn My biggest concern, bar none, is going to be the perception that a new user is immune to the quality standards. We're already seeing that argument about being welcoming.

So I get super grumpy when I see yet another feature made that's going to get used as a bludgeon while curating content.

I guess I'm more a pessimist than an optimist.

Ave

No one's immune to that. Not even Atwood himself would be able to get away with it.

Wipqozn

@Frank the bar isn't lower we just gotta be nicer. We'll still close your shitty question, but we'll just be awkwardly smiling as we do it.

Frank

@Wipqozn And not calling the question shitty, which is an inarguably shitty thing to do.

Unionhawk

Honestly the code of conduct examples illustrate this best

Frank

12:36 AM

Which I get, and totally agree with.

Ave

however lower rep users need more handholding to learn the basics, and ignoring some basic mistakes is not THAT bad

Wipqozn

He's just so happy

Unionhawk

If you're not willing to put in the work to leave a helpful comment, stay out of the comments section

It's that simple

Frank

@Ave Basics, no. The often arbitrary, random, and downright inane rules we have, sure.

Wipqozn

Which is already the rules, aka be nice, we're just making it better defined

Unionhawk

12:38 AM

And it is work

Frank

@Unionhawk This is under debate as it is. Everyone has various definitions of what constitutes helpful.

Unionhawk

But it is work worth doing

Wipqozn

Anyways I meant to start reading a book an hour ago

But I also wanted to play civ. But now it's too late for that.

Frank

And I meant to start working on more centerpieces awhile ago, too.

Yay for 3d printing and fishing line?

Wipqozn

I blame all if you for being a bad influence.

Unionhawk

12:46 AM

Ahh, hello. Was it you who rang the Bell of Awakening?

Tweeted by donniemnemonic on August 20, 2018 at 4:50 AM

Memor-X

@Unionhawk at first i thought that was a llama or alpaca

quartata

Man, lazy8's been 500ing forever now

I can't post without having both of the hellsites up

Ave

i am in bed trying to get through kirby medley on taiko, I blame wipqozn personally for this

Wipqozn

1:03 AM

I just realized my monitor has the setup I need for the mount

Awesome

So I'll just buy one new one

Wipqozn

1:27 AM

Bought the mount. Monitor is next, but I'll spend more time on that. I also might not bother and just wait to buy 4k whenever I upgrade. Likely next year.

Niro

@GodEmperorDune IT'S YOU

Tim Stone

2:24 AM

@Wipqozn Counterpoint though it's in fact never too late for Civ

Wipqozn

@TimStone That is a good counterpoint

@TimStone did you buy Rise and Fall?

Tim Stone

A while ago yeah

Oh, actually I think I have the season pass

Is that a thing?

Either way I own it

Wipqozn

I haven't picked it up yet. I'll either buy all the DLC during a sale or just wait for the next expansion.

I can still get a lot of hours from vanilla civ vi

I've only got about 50 hours.

Tim Stone

I like some of the new civs, the golden age stuff is alright, governors is alright, city loyalty is probably more of a meaningful change

Wipqozn

2:40 AM

Yeah I heard loyalty was the biggest change

I'm actually trying to cut back on my game purchases and actually spend more time on games I already own

There's way too many games that I wish I spent more time with

GodEmperorDune

3:54 AM

@Niro umm wat

GodEmperorDune

5:17 AM

Meet the hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis). It’s the largest aquatic salamander in N. America, growing up to 2 ft on average! It “breathes” via its skin by absorbing the oxygen from the water & prefers to live in clear, highly-oxygenated, fast-flowing rivers & streams.

Tweeted by AMNH on August 21, 2018 at 12:05 AM

Hellbender boi

Lazers 2.0

6:09 AM

0

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minecraft

Nzall

7:25 AM

Me as a seven year old: I CANT BELIEVE THE PEOPLE OF KRYPTON WOULD DENY THE PLANET IS EXPLODING. THAT'S STUPID. Me now, reading the comment section of a climate change article: oh

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