The Bridge

sjohnston

21:00

@tzenes duct tape is always the right answer

Cawas

:4438 here.

tzenes

@Caw probably, anyway, later

Cawas

in your place I'd try somewhere around the tavern:

Cawas

chat.meta.stackoverflow.com/rooms/89/the-tavern-general

tzenes

on the issue of tags: the reason console tags are less useful than game tags is that people tend to care about specific games, and rarely want to just see every question on a specific console

Cawas

21:02

but maybe you find the right people here, and not there - so as for me, be free to keep going ;)

Cawas

:4445 agreed.

Cawas

cya

badp

:4435 commenteded

I just think bootstrap waters the meaning of beta down

Jeff and Joel didn't need 90 days to figure out Gadgets wasn't working. They also needed much less to decide the others SEs were healthy and answering.

tzenes

they may not have needed 90 days, but they needed some (unknown) period of time

it may be that you can decide some sites it just 30 days, while others take longer

badp

Yeah, so what's the 90 days deadline for? :)

tzenes

21:05

you do, however, need some threshold

at some point you have to make an evaluation if it isn't obvious whether it should stay or go

setting the 90 day date gave them a deadline for that evaluation

remember there is nothing to say that after 90 days they can't say: You know what we need another 90 days of beta to really decide

badp

The result of the evaluation also could be "stay a few more weeks in beta, you're not there yet, you're not fully ready to stand on your own legs"

tzenes

very true

but I don't think the rep economy is a make or break issue (on whether or not to delay)

badp

Agreed, but I think it's a delaying issue

Maybe some sites are just small enough to justify 10k tools at 2k for a very long period

tzenes

I think whether or not the site is gaining questions and whether or not those questions are getting answers, those are the criteria which are important

badp

I agree that producing quality answers is the #1 priority, mind you.

Just, if it ain't ready, well, it ain't ready.

tzenes

21:08

some sites might need a longer beta period to see if they're getting questions (eg if a site gets a ton in the first 30, but few in the last 60, or if a site gets few in the first 80, but a ton in the last 10)

badp

You can go around waving your arms enjoying the fact you're being promoted from sketchy to your own domain and style and stuff

tzenes

but I don't see the rep economy as part of that decision

badp

but you still ain't ready.

sjohnston

It seems to me that the main thing to be concerned about is getting into the situation where there aren't enough closers and you have questions like "Can someone tell me some good FPS games" that you can't get rid of. Whatever solution avoids that is fine by me.

badp

Well I did give a kind of workaround

tzenes

21:09

@sjohnston mods solve that problem

badp

close at 2k, edit at 3k, tools at 10k

:4474 Not having closers kind of makes all "policies"/"protocols"/"wisdom" about diamond moderation moot

tzenes

no, things can still be debated in meta

badp

One meta thread per game-rec question?

sjohnston

:)

If not more

Brant

Most of the thresholds were set based on the original Stack Overflow's rep economy which had a pretty huge userbase right from the start. Maybe they'll make sense for smaller SE2.0 sites, maybe they won't

tzenes

21:11

we have several on the topic as a whole

badp

:4481 Actually I hoped this question would show things aren't quite the same as SO

WillfulWizard

You guys sound like you are arguing over a term. You can call it beta, or bootstrap, or more mods, or lower thresholds, but anything that keeps enough people able to use the tools and the site going is all that matters. Call it what you want.

badp

:4481 meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/58587/…

Brant

IMO, you can't use the number of users at an arbitrary threshold (which was designed for a different site years ago) to rate the success of this site

badp

:4484 It's any of those terms, it's just not "gold" or "released" or "finished" or "finally at a point where we can stand on our own legs"

tzenes

21:13

I don't see why having some other set of rep thresholds means the site isn't released

WillfulWizard

Ah, that's what you're arguing. Why not? why can't we be a working finished site with lower thresholds?

tzenes

if SO decided tomorrow to bump up the rep thresholds, would you say it hasn't been release for the last couple years?

WillfulWizard

They're just numbers.

badp

:4490 Those numbers always have been considered final, moderation has been at 10k since day 1

tzenes

They have been, that doesn't mean they always will be

badp

21:14

Our moderation thresholds at day 1 of non-betaness should stick for a long, long time. I don't mean forever, but definitely more than a few weeks.

sjohnston

@badp but does that mean they have to apply to all other SE sites?

tzenes

its entirely possible that everyone will get over 10k, or that rep inflation will become a problem or any of a 100 other things

Brant

I doubt the SE folks would let something as arbitrary and easily-tweaked as moderation thresholds have a negative effect on a site's success

badp

:4496 So long as questions fall through the cracks, I don't think rep reqs are being increased

and that's without counting the circa 770 users who have tools access

tzenes

maybe at some number (10,000) all of a sudden too many people can moderate and that becomes a problem

look I could come up with fantasy scenarios all day, but it doesn't advance the conversation

there is nothing to say that any number "must" be final

and certainly the finality of such numbers can be completely independent of the Beta period

badp

21:18

:4501 Yeah, we've seen your "what abouts" in action :)

I just think it's lame to have bootstrap mode after going gold

"We're not there yet but let's assume we are so we can have some cake!"

tzenes

I don't think being there has anything to do with the number of people with X rep

badp

btw, SO has 3,481 closers with ~3k questions/day

it's well away from having too many close votes around I believe

Brant

I think a more interesting metric would be the ratio of questions-per-period to active*-users-who-have-tool-access

(* for your favorite definition of active)

tzenes

I would like a feature that didn't tell me a user's rep, but instead kept (upvotes-downvotes) per answer

or per question

badp

Quite possible I believe...

(Not that I'm going to make it.)

tzenes

21:23

that would give me more information about a user than his/her rep score

badp

:4510 770 people with more than 10k

tzenes

if I post enough questions/answers I'm bound to have a higher rep than if I don't

badp

mind you, 10k really doesn't enable you to do anything extra

tzenes

but I want to know who posts the really good questions/answers

Brant

you know, that statement of mine made no sense whatsoever

badp

21:23

at 3k you've unlocked everything reputation can really unlock

If you need more, you need a diamond

...or production database access if you just need it all.

sjohnston

Perhaps the real problem is that the criteria for exiting beta is not concretely defined. That leaves us free to argue just what it means to become a "real" site. In which case, it doesn't matter, because all these decisions will be taken care of by VCs with dart boards :)

badp

Okay, I'm bookmarking the conversation so we can move along

Brant

@sjohnston: yeah, pretty much.

WillfulWizard

:4518 If you've posted more questions/answers, aren't you more likely to have interacted with the system more, and learned more about what is ok and not?

Brant

this is getting overanalyzed a bit, imo :)

WillfulWizard

21:26

:4529 That's why chat is the Third Place and not ok on the site.

tzenes

:4528 That might be good for moderation, but it doesn't tell me who really knows his/her stuff. That's the statistic I want

Brant

(says the guy with a few hundred rep who never bothered analyzing anything much at all before today)

badp

:4525 You do make a jolly good point there btw

anyway, further comments go here:

6

A: What happens to beta SE sites that do not have enough high rep users?

If you think a beta site needs a bootstrap mode, maybe it should just stick around in beta instead. I think you're kind of missing the point of beta. Beta is not a period where we're waiting for people to have enough rep so we can use the preset system. Beta is a period in which we can try to ...

WillfulWizard

:4531 Fair point. What you'

What you're getting as is that site moderation and correctness are not the same, but they are treated that way

sjohnston

@tzenes if we're going to debate what the correct metric to determine quality of a user, we're officially doomed. This is almost completely subjective

tzenes

21:27

I didn't say correct, I said I want

this is my pain point

if I see a user with 750 rep who says something about a game I'm playing and I can't tell if I should trust him or not, knowing his votes/answers ratio is 20 or 2 is way more important for me than the 750 number

Brant

you mean accepted answers?

sjohnston

@tzenes votes per answer can vary quite a bit though. The determining factor is often more about how popular the subjects are that you're active in. For example, you could write just as excellent answers, but if they were all on Pokemon questions instead of Starcraft, I expect your ratios would be quite a bit different :)

Brant

reputation and trustability (truthiness?) aren't exactly the same thing anyway.

sjohnston

@brant I think we can all agree that reputation is a very imperfect system

Brant

It's pretty good at what it was designed for, i.e. gating access to community tools and providing a warm fuzzy feeling for contributing useful content

but it's no more a measure of trustworthiness than how funny somebody's gravatar is

that's what the votes on each answer are for

Mechko

21:38

sigh. I just had a 'discussion' with some kid who has come to the realization that Democracy is not well thought out. He claimed that democracy ought to have caveats that allow the president/prime minister to enact laws 'for the good of the people' because most of the time 'the people are too f*cking stupid to realize what is good for them'...

Brant

(which is also imperfect, but there you go)

sjohnston

@mechko I thought we already had that, and it's called the Patriot Act?

Mechko

@sjohnston this kid is a liberal fanatic, not a republican fanatic :-p

sjohnston

The magic of democracy is that the people really are often too f*cking stupid to realize what is good for them...and yet, for the most part, it still works...

Mechko

His argument ended with the proviso that it should only be active when there are no republicans around...

@sjohnston Madison 10.

sjohnston

21:40

ha

1.) There should be a way to force through laws. 2.) It should only be usable by people who agree with me.

ingenius

badp

Okay, so what are we doing about the domain name anyway? :/

sjohnston

In political discourse, the people who worry me are the people who think there's an easy way to fix things

badp

The team will be choke busy for the next 48 hours to get Webapps out of the door I guess

Mechko

I think we should become www.madison10.gov since our reputation system is resilient against factiousness.

badp

That leaves a mere 5 days

sjohnston

21:43

@badp We're picking one of the mediocre names and sticking with it?

Alternately, everyone tries real hard to come up with something and we all pray for an epiphany.

badp

:4564 That or we stick around in beta for a little longer ;)

:4565 We've prayed for an epiphany for 83 days. There is one awesome name, StageSix, but we can't assume we can get it

sjohnston

@badp As tempting as that sounds, I've seen nothing that leads me to believe another month or three will solve this problem

Brant

what's the next-highest Stage# that's available?

badp

No, waiting longer won't help

sjohnston

@badp Is there some reference I'm missing that makes StageSix awesome?

badp

21:44

:4570 Whereabouts of 30

:4572 It's just a reasonable name for a videogame level towards the end, when things get tough.

sjohnston

@badp I guess I prefer BossLevel if we're going for that, as it has the added connotation of us being "high-level" gamers.

Ultimately, I suspect the name is one of those things that is terribly contentious right now, and then it will be picked, and it will turn out to be fine and nobody will really care one way or another.

2

There's certainly no shortage of websites with nonsense names that have done well

badp

anyway bbl

sjohnston

Interesting how every day popularity of the top couple names swings wildly. meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/1047/…

LessPop_MoreFizz

Now GOG needs to get System Shock 2

I want my SHODAN fix.

ahahahahahahaha. SHMUPs= Space Invaders.

"Space invaders was a DOS game that was very popular in the early 90s"

"Over in Japan, math is seen as a fun activity but to be honest I find it rather dull, especially when I'm sitting down to relax with some casual gaming."

sjohnston

22:07

nice

How long do you have to edit a post in chat before it's locked? I didn't realize it did that.

ah two minutes

Mechko

22:20

what's wrong with stage six again?

sjohnston

@mechko I'm not sure. In the meta question, it's listed as costing "$1990?", but I'm not sure we actually know it's for sale

I don't get the <spoiler> <spoiler> comment, is that something I'd have to play the game to understand?

Mechko

haha well I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't solved it but wants to

it's about as obvious a hint as the game gives

sjohnston

I wish we could get an actual spoiler markup.

tzenes

:4590 I think that's a made up number

I tried to contact the owners and they said its for sale but couldn't give me a number

sjohnston

Unfortunately, it's probably not a feature that would be useful for anyone besides Gaming.

@tzenes that's odd. They're not trying very hard to sell it if they don't even offer a price

tzenes

22:27

he said it was an issue with his system and he'd get back to me with a real price but he never did

Mechko

The current asking price is $990. Payment plans are available.

Just got a quote from them

tzenes

that seems like a lot

Mechko

Hello,

The current asking price is $990. Payment plans are available.

To purchase this domain, please create an account at:
https://www.tierra.net/account/signup

Then email me with your username and new legal owner and we'll transfer
the domain into your account and change the owner. Once this is done, an
administrative lock will be placed on the domain which will be removed once
payment is received. Payment can be made by credit card, check or wire
transfer.

Thanks,
Dan
Valuable Web Names

2

sjohnston

Have the SE team made any mention of how much is too much, when it comes to buying domains?

Or is it just vague mumblings, like the rest of the process?

WillfulWizard

:4605 I've gotten the impression it depends on how much the community loves it.

tzenes

22:35

guess

Mechko

btw. DON'T KEEP ASKING THEM FOR QUOTES

2

if too many people ask, the price might go up

sjohnston

@mechko good point

this domain money-grubbery is kind of ridiculous

Mechko

I'll post the email on meta so that everyone can see it, though

should I make a new topic or as an answer to the old one?

tzenes

just edit the current answer

Mechko

good point

doing so now

C. Ross

22:59

So I asked a modding question over at GameDev

I'm not sure they can make up their minds about what's on topic

tzenes

@Cross to answer your question: yes

it has even wider set of modding tools

forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9637147#post9637147

Kael (the maker of FFH) put out two mods already for Civ5

sjohnston

23:56

Dag, 8 points short of rep cap today.

badp

:4624 begging for upvotes? I could make that 10 points!! :P

sjohnston

So close, and yet so far away

Heh, no, I don't care that much

(mmmm precious rep...precious...)

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