The Bridge

WillfulWizard

19:02

:9464 That makes a lot more sense than your earlier comment, and matches the stated goals of the SE network.

Arda Xi

:9464 Actually, while popularity is affected by opinions, in and of itself it's very objective

You can't argue with numbers

WillfulWizard

So it seems the two sides come down to this: One side sees added value, the other side sees information based on popularity, which is not our goal, not what we're setup to support, causing added problems.

:9466 You are jumping to the conclusion that votes on game-rec answers will actually MATCH popularity, which there is no guarantee of.

Oak

Oooo @tzenes that looks like a challenge, your comment there

tzenes

I am willing to bet I can find the 84 games

Arda Xi

:9469 Of course, but in a way, unless people actually lie, it should

tzenes

19:04

and @arda you most certainly can argue with numbers, its a field known as statistics...

Arda Xi

:9473 In a way yes, but would you like to argue that eg WoW is not popular?

if you only look at objective data available

tzenes

@Arda I would argue that WoW is not very popular in comparison to games like Farmville

WillfulWizard

:9475 And who exactly is going to post/track/update all of that objective data on our game-rec answers?

Oak

Man @tzenes I'm really tempted to agree, if only because two of these are my questions and I will love more answers there :)

Oak

though I hope you don't mean all kind of strange flash games.

Arda Xi

19:07

:9476 that's comparing apples to oranges, fairly sure they don't do that in statistics

tzenes

@Arda first off, they do do that in statistics, secondly, that's an unfair analogy if what you're looking for is MMOs, thirdly, just because wow is more popular than game X doesn't mean that the votes will show that

statistics is the science of demonstrating what you can show based on the information you are given

Arda Xi

:9481 nor does it mean they won't

:9482 You don't compare apples to oranges if you're judging apples.

Only if you're judging fruit

tzenes

it is concerned with things like: sample size, sample population, and type I and type II errors

we vary easily could be in a situation where we have a recommendation to which both farmville and WoW are acceptable answers

I realize you haven't had serious statistics courses so it may seem like a single question is a decent sample, but it is not

and I don't have the time to teach you why that is the case

badp

:9416 there's more to it than that, adult content is the highway to being filtered and Jeff esplicitly asked to have none of that

Arda Xi

...

badp

19:10

yes, I'm reading the backlog

Arda Xi

:9489 no need to patronize me, I know that one piece of data is not a big enough sample to derive anything from

tzenes

:9466 your statement here suggests the opposite

Arda Xi

:9494 if you are comparing popularity, you judge by the amount of players it has

among other things

tzenes

"Actually, while popularity is affected by opinions, in and of itself it's very objective"

Arda Xi

of course, this will not always be expressed in votes

Oak

19:12

All Arda said is that popularity is objective. With that I happen to agree.

Oak

And I have taken a statistics course :)

Oak

Though, honestly, I remember almost nothing.

Oak

Found it not to my liking

tzenes

Ok, then can you objectively determine the most popular game?

Oak

But that's not what he wrote, and I guess that's not what he meant.

tzenes

19:13

or Piece of Music?

or anything related to popularity?

if popularity is objective, then it should be objectively determined

badp

popularity is objectively equal to 95, where 95 is least popular and 95 is most popular and Portal is 96.

Arda Xi

:9507 Objectively isn't the same as indubitably

it just means you're basing it on facts rather than opinions

Oak

I don't understand what you're getting it. Honestly. You said popularity is something affected by opinion. I agree. What I understand from Arda is that he said that popularity can be measured. With that I also agree.

Arda Xi

If you're calling the criteria for determining popularity subjective than I can't imagine anything being objective.

tzenes

@Oak I am saying you cannot determine popularity from facts, because the set of criteria which determines popularity does not exist

it is an ambiguous term

Arda Xi

19:17

:9513 Then you cannot research anything objectively

tzenes

is the most popular song the one that is played most? most purchased? most people say they like it? most people say is their favorite? etc tect etc

by comparison if I want to know if a rock is a diamond my set of criteria are well defined: is it composed of carbon with hydrogen caps? is the ratio with in specifications? is the carbon is a BCC latic?

Oak

@tzenes so use a different term, what's the matter? I don't think that was Arda's point. Then again, I'm not him

Arda Xi

:9518 I'm working off popularity because that's the term you used :)

tzenes

the problem here is the popularity is influenced by all these factors and the voting represents none of them

Oak

Besides, this is not a scientific paper; everything is loosely defined anyway.

tzenes

19:18

thus we can't say that it is objective

we don't even have a ball park here

Oak

Sure we can. We can define how popular something inside a specific question as the amount of votes it gets in that question.

Oak

:)

Oak

Anyway, I don't understand the point of this conversation.

Oak

bye!

tzenes

:9524 that only shows how many people are willing to vote, not how popular it is

Arda Xi

19:25

:9528 likewise, in your diamond example all you've shown is that the rock is composed of carbon with hydrogen caps

Aubergine

Quick question here

(I guess I could post this on meta, but this is really something small and quick)

tzenes

:9529 + BCC lattice structure = definition of diamon

shoot @aub

Aubergine

Does the spoiler tag mean that I'm looking for answers with spoilers, or that my question contains spoilers (or both)?

Arda Xi

:9532 as such, you cannot indubitably prove that it is a diamond, however we assume that it is (and can be quite sure)

my question being: why can we accept such a definition for diamond to be empirically true, but not popularity?

tzenes

:9535 I can indubitably prove it is a diamond

we have a strong definition for what a diamond is. We do not have such a definition for popularity

Arda Xi

19:30

you cannot indubitably prove anything

tzenes

in what context?

Arda Xi

without a doubt

tzenes

I know what indubitably means

in what context can you not prove anything?

Arda Xi

it is very much possible (however remote the possibility) that what you have isn't actually diamond, but just something very similar

tzenes

how so?

how can I have something that is carbon capped with hydrogen in a BCC lattice and have it not be a diamond?

Arda Xi

19:33

yeah.. I may have picked a bad example there

sjohnston

Is anything really gained here by debating the philosophy of proving reality (which has been debated for a few dozen centuries now)?

Even if we don't have a definition for "popularity" (or any other term, for that matter), we can define it. We only need a general consensus of our users.

Arda Xi

:9552 Thanks

sjohnston

Assuming we can actually come to consensus on something

tzenes

what definition is beneficial to the site?

sjohnston

after the domain fiasco, I'm not entirely convinced we can

Arda Xi

19:34

:9554 good point

:9555 amount of votes is literally the only definition that can be applied to the site

tzenes

ok, that's circular logic

Arda Xi

then what?

tzenes

popularity = bad

Arda Xi

It's the only definition I could think of that is beneficial to the site

:9561 why?

tzenes

we're going in circles here

Arda Xi

19:36

Why is popularity bad?

tzenes

I said that using the definition of votes is bad because the original problem is "sort by votes"

I said popularity is bad because there is no definition we can use

Arda Xi

the definition we can use (if we can agree on a definition at all) is the amount of votes

it is an approximation of course

but as someone pointed out before, this is not a scientific paper, we don't need empirical figures

tzenes

if we use the amount of votes as the definition then our statement becomes: sort by votes isn't a problem because its a sort by popularity where popularity is the number of votes

that's circular logic

alexanderpas

meta?

Arda Xi

that's not circular logic, that's tautology

tzenes

19:40

...

Arda Xi

saying sort by votes is a sort by popularity is the same thing as saying popularity is the number of votes

sjohnston

@tzenes So is your primary concern that people can't be bothered to read through all the answers? I came into this in the middle - I'm not clear what problem you're trying to prevent.

tzenes

My primary concern is that questions of this nature do not reward expertise

sort by votes is usually a method to reward expertise

better answers "float"

in the case of game-rec people vote according to subjective opinion

if we term this "popularity" as a umbrella term for all possible subjective opinions peopel use

then we are sorting by "popularity"

Arda Xi

a CW question does not reward expertise anyway

tzenes

since all possible subject opinions does not equal expertise it breaks the system

votes matter

alexanderpas

19:44

sort by popularity, which is incidentally, the most common used method for vote sorting in the govnement.

tzenes

even if they don't convey rep

Arda Xi

:9585 on the subject of game recommendations, subjective opinions do equal expertise

tzenes

:9587 democracy is the worst possible system... except for all the others

StrixVaria

@Arda that doesn't make any sense

tzenes

hahaha

I'm glad someone else said it

Arda Xi

19:45

:9591 a game-rec question is subjective

alexanderpas

actually it does, who game-recs Metroid: Other M

Arda Xi

hence, whichever is the right answer is subjective

hence the expertise is subjective

StrixVaria

Subjective things by definition cannot have experts.

tzenes

Ok, @oak's point was that there is expertise which is not subjective

StrixVaria

The answers may be objective, but the sorting will be subjective.

Arda Xi

19:46

Fairly sure the field of statistics has experts

alexanderpas

philosophy can't have experts?

StrixVaria

How is statistics subjective?

tzenes

@alexanderpas no, only historians

Arda Xi

:9603 just to name one thing, the data set you use

StrixVaria

Ok going back to your argument for "the expertise is subjective", I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say

alexanderpas

19:48

you have lies, damn lies and statistics.

Arda Xi

:9606 if there is to be any expertise for a subjective question, how can it be objective?

StrixVaria

you just threw the word "hence" all over the place and came up with some kind of babble that doesn't even make sense syntactically

"the expertise is subjective"

i can't parse that

Arda Xi

:9611 answer the question then?

for if something isn't objective, it has to be subjective

alexanderpas

@StrixVaria syntax error?

StrixVaria

ok i agree on that point

what is your question that you want me to answer

(aside: natural languages have syntaxes too)

Arda Xi

19:49

in Bridge on Gaming Chat, Oct 13 at 19:48, by Arda Xi

@StrixVaria if there is to be any expertise for a subjective question, how can it be objective?

StrixVaria

that question doesn't make any sense

i can't even figure out what you're asking

Arda Xi

@tzenes said: "subject opinions does not equal expertise"

StrixVaria

agreed

the point is, if I like game x and you like game y

who's to say who's right?

we both have our own opinions

Arda Xi

the asker, usually

StrixVaria

the problem with game-rec questions is

there are multiple "correct" answers

as long as a game meets the requirements in the question, it is a correct answer

so thereafter it's just sorted based entirely on popularity

because they are all correct

people are going to vote for the ones that they want others to see more, so their pet game gets more exposure

alexanderpas

19:52

If I like game X, Y and Z, and you like game X, Y and Z, you might be more of an expert on the things I also like, compared to someone who likes A, B and C.

StrixVaria

that makes sense too

i'll agree to that

Arda Xi

:9632 as such, the more popular a game is, the more votes it will get

tzenes

@alexanderpas unless there are other factors outside of games which matter like: what tv shows you like, where you were born, etc

StrixVaria

exactly right arda

and since popularity is SUBJECTIVE

Arda Xi

:9638 which was my point... a half hour ago or something

StrixVaria

19:53

i fail to see what point you're trying to make

Arda Xi

:9639 popularity isn't subjective, the factors effecting it are

tzenes

@Strix I made the argument popularity is SUBJECTIVE half an hour ago

which is where we went with the whole Diamond conversation

StrixVaria

the fact that something is popular or not can be objectively measured

but this is not the place to do it

alexanderpas

@ArdaXi, playing devils advocate again?

tzenes

and ultimately the reason you can't argue with @Arda on this issue is that he's using circular logic and calling it a tutology

Arda Xi

19:55

:9647 @Oak convinced me, actually

:9648 you were saying the exact same thing twice with different wording... according to my dictionary that is the definition of tautology

tzenes

....

StrixVaria

i'm not saying no argument exists on the side of allowing game-rec, but arda xi makes no sense at all

this particular argument is meaningless

you're trying to argue semantics and doing it with non-questions

Arda Xi

the question I asked wasn't meant to attack your point, I actually did want an answer

StrixVaria

and if i understood it i would have answered it

alexanderpas

Tautology (rhetoric)

In rhetoric, a tautology is an unnecessary or unessential (and sometimes unintentional) repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing (often originally from different languages). It is often regarded as a fault of style and was defined by Fowler as "saying the same thing twice." It is not apparently necessary or essential for the entire meaning of a phrase to be repeated. If a part of the meaning is repeated in such a way that it appears as unintentional, or clumsy, then it may be described as tautology. On the other hand, a repetition of ...

sjohnston

19:57

Here's my attempt at the pro-game-rec point of view:

When you ask a game rec question, you are asking for others' opinions. You make the implicit assumption that if a game is popular over all gamers, it is likely you will enjoy it. You also assume that the population of gaming.se is a fairly representative subset of all gamers. Therefore, the rec answer that gets the most votes is (more or less) the most popular in this group, and presumably also popular across gamers as a whole. Therefore, it is the most "correct" answer to your question

Arda Xi

all I asked was basically "how can a subjective question have objective answers"

alexanderpas

@sjohnston post it on meta!

sjohnston

there are a number of assumptions made there, but it's a string of fairly logical jumps

and just for the record, I'm not really on one side or the other on this

Arda Xi

all I asked was basically "how can a subjective question have objective answers"

StrixVaria

a subjective question can't have objective answers

the questions are objective (they ask for games meeting certain requirements)

once the correct answers are identified, however, the SORTING is subjective

sjohnston

19:59

^ this

alexanderpas

Stack Overflow Blog: Good Subjective, Bad Subjective

Posted by Robert Cartaino on September 29th, 2010

Stack Exchange is about questions with objective, factual answers. We’ve been crystal clear about this for as long as I can remember, even back to the earliest, pre-beta days of Stack Overflow. It’s right there in the standard Stack Exchange FAQ:

What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!

Thus, questions that are not answerable — discussions, debates, opinions — should be closed as subjective. It seems simple enough: Fact good; opinion and discussion bad. But why? …

tzenes

for reference:

Circular reasoning

Circular reasoning is a formal logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises. For example: "Only an untrustworthy person would run for office. The fact that politicians are untrustworthy is proof of this." Such an argument is fallacious, because it relies upon its own proposition — "politicians are untrustworthy" — in order to support its central premise. Essentially, the argument assumes that its central point is already proven, and uses this in support of itself. Circular reasoning is different from the informal log...

Arda Xi

:9671 I know what circular reasoning is

and I don't agree that I was doing it

tzenes

Yeah I know you don't

alexanderpas

you don't agree you did, because you didn't? (;))

tzenes

20:01

people rarely do

Arda Xi

circular reasoning would be saying that votes are sorted by popularity because the most popular answers have the most votes

alexanderpas

@tzenes work to do!

tzenes

or: sorting by popularity isn't subjective because the number of votes is what is popular and we know what is popular by the number of votes

@alexanderpas I'm not getting dragged into the: 2v2 is not balanced debate again

Arda Xi

I said that questions are sorted by popularity because people vote for their favourite answers, which is what I defined popularity as

that's overly explicit, but not circular reasoning

alexanderpas

sorting by popularity isn't subjective because | the number of votes is what is popular and we know what is popular by the number of votes

Arda Xi

20:05

no, because people vote for their favourite answers

tzenes

thank you @alex

Arda Xi

that is not the same thing

tzenes

earlier you said "number of votes = popular"

you also said "sorting by popular is ok because its not subjective"

Arda Xi

yes

tzenes

finally you said "what is popular is not subjective because we can determine it by the number of votes"

number of votes = popular = not subjective because determined by number of votes

number of votes = not subjective because determined by number of votes

...

Arda Xi

20:07

of course, if you simplify it like that everything is circular reasoning

because arguments depend on definitions

usually those definitions are implicit

tzenes

this is like talking to a 15 year old...

alexanderpas

definitions are made by a good arguments

Arda Xi

:9698 ...

alexanderpas

:9698 correct (or something like that)

Arda Xi

if you're going to talk about fallacies ad hominem isn't the way to go

tzenes

20:08

Arda your argument makes no sense, everyone here understands that

alexanderpas

it makes sense. sorta.

sjohnston

I don't agree

please don't speak for "everyone"

Arda Xi

:9703 you're only seeing what you want to see

tzenes

ok well then can someone besides arda explain it to me?

alexanderpas

joined too late for that.

Arda Xi

20:09

you want to see circular reasoning, so you see circular reasoning

sjohnston

I posted my explanation

StrixVaria

Your explanation has its own merits and drawbacks, but it's not the same as arda's

alexanderpas

besides, that would cause a temporal loop

StrixVaria

i don't think anyone could coherently explain arda's stance right now

tzenes

your explanation seems fully divorced

alexanderpas

20:10

understanding is one, explaining is another thing.

tzenes

do you think you understand what he's trying to say?

sjohnston

alright, that may be. unfortunately I can't devote my full attention to this at work :-/

tzenes

I also have run out of time

sjohnston

I'll have to look over the last few pages later

tzenes

but I would posit that while there is possibly an explanation for why game-rec should exist, the one arda just exposed makes no sense

alexanderpas

20:12

:9717 I think i understand what she's trying to say.

tzenes

can you explain it to me?

Arda Xi

in Bridge on Gaming Chat, Oct 13 at 20:10, by alexanderpas

understanding is one, explaining is another thing.

tzenes

that doesn't answer my question

StrixVaria

I disgree...you can't fully understand something until you can explain it to someone else.

alexanderpas

:9726 while i agree with that on technical grounds, i don't think it is valid for this type of case.

tzenes

20:16

I also disagree with the statement, but I'm more curious if @alex can explain it, not if explanation implies understanding

alexanderpas

like i said:

in Bridge on Gaming Chat, Oct 13 at 20:10, by alexanderpas

understanding is one, explaining is another thing.

tzenes

so you can't?

this is a yes or no question, I kind of need a yes or no answer

badp

@ardaxi there's a problem with "you can infer popularity from votes", if answers were sorted randomly you could be able to do that. However, people just read the first three top entries and upvote those. Just like they do with Google.

alexanderpas

in Bridge on Gaming Chat, Oct 13 at 20:09, by alexanderpas

joined too late for that.

like i said:

in Bridge on Gaming Chat, Oct 13 at 20:09, by alexanderpas

joined too late for that.

tzenes

:9733 I agree

so you joined too late to understand or to explain?

alexanderpas

20:19

to properly explain.

sjohnston

so answer order skews popularity? Do you believe it drastically skews it?

badp

:9740 Absolutely and dramatically so.

2

Arda Xi

:9733 People always upvote the first three Google answers?

alexanderpas

it does for results after the first page.

sjohnston

there's a great deal of complexity there though

Arda Xi

20:21

I don't see how you could compare that, the SE engine doesn't have an objective formula to determine the questions to show on top

StrixVaria

it does even before the first page; by the time you get 10 answers your interest level is gone before you get to the bottom. possibly not for you, but for enough people to skew the results

sjohnston

how likely is it that a more popular answer would also be posted before less popular answers, and therefore be more likely to be on the front page

alexanderpas

@StrixVaria I sometimes read up to page 5, i avaraged the numbers.

sjohnston

how often are there going to be multiple pages of answers?

StrixVaria

depending on how big we get it could be fairly often for these types of questions

we're trying to determine the precedent to set now for the future of the site

we can't just think in the short term

alexanderpas

20:23

[game-rec]? highest propability all over the site.

sjohnston

we probably all know that any system to measure popularity is inherently imperfect, even if we agree on a definition of popularity. But an imperfect system may still be good enough, if it provides people with answers that satisfy them

alexanderpas

[game-rec] propability == propability of all other tags combined.

tzenes

:9754 he didn't just say absolutely he also said dramatically

badp

how many times is which one more popular than the other?

sjohnston

I would guess the latter, but my ability to guess correctly doesn't seem to have much bearing on the current conversation. I only get one vote

badp

20:26

:9760 yes, but by how many times? :)

alexanderpas

also, why is there so much money going on in the SEO business? (and not in Acessibility)

user30

Evening, anybody want to help me out?

alexanderpas

@ThomasMcDonald go ahead!

user30

Gaming has a WP blog right?

sjohnston

:9761 uh, 5 to 1?

badp

20:27

:9766 no, 31 to 1

43

A: What's your favorite "programmer" cartoon?

This is my everyday.

1337

A: What's your favorite "programmer" cartoon?

alexanderpas

:9765 yes: gamingse.wordpress.com

badp

1322/42 ~= 31

sjohnston

:9767 okaaaaaaaaay

badp

:9772 does that make any sense now? :) The latter is on page 1, the former is one page fuck knows what.

sjohnston

I guess I'm supposed to be convinced of something?

alexanderpas

20:29

:9772 it's the choice of dataset ;) (gotcha @badp)

sjohnston

:9773 that ratio doesn't matter at all, unless you can show what the ratio would be if their locations were reversed

user30

And from what I understand, after talking to tzenes very briefly about it, there was some difficulty with getting people to contribute. Did any of you currently in chat participate, and what would make you participate?

badp

Please nevermind the readding of the blog feed to this room and the momentary spam it will generate.

sjohnston

:9777 I plan to participate, but I haven't found the time yet...

user30

(background: working on something for wordpress.se at the moment, looking to expand it to multiple sites to create an awesome SE community network)

sjohnston

20:30

Here's another thought, and maybe it's been brought up before, but I just thought of it.

What percentage of game-rec questions have checked answers?

alexanderpas

:9777 learning how to creatively write more than one paragraph... ;)

sjohnston

if people have been satisfied with the results, is that what really matters?

badp

:9777 I think there just is a lack of interest here.

People don't go to the SO blog to read about tech, there's CodingHorror and pals for that.

alexanderpas

i'm a programmer and a gamer, not a writer... I solve problems (and I do LARP)

StrixVaria

@sjohnston It's not about being satisfied. This is supposed to be a community of experts, and having correct answers should be our number one priority. Not satisfying the masses.

user30

20:32

Yeah, you see the blog currently set up for gaming is different from the direction we were going to take with it

user30

There's a lot of great answers emerging on the WPA site which are practically articles in themselves, and would probably drive a huge amount of traffic to the site if they were in article form (what with twitter and retweeting everybody elses blog posts being the primary job for web developers now), and so the original plan was to work with these great answers and turn them into comprehensive articles on a topic

user30

Perhaps one per week, with a number of 'quick tips' in between

badp

:9798 What exactly stops them from receiving traffic in their answer form?

Maybe you can't inline youtube videos or tables, but...

user30

@badp I think in general we have fairly low traffic

badp

:9802 I have noticed that. :/

well, WA is on par on AskUbuntu

that's not bad at all...

alexanderpas

20:40

:9805 SuperUser?

user30

And the WordPress people aren't particularly keen with directly affiliating with WPA, from what I can tell

StrixVaria

@alexanderpas That was my initial thought at that question too.

badp

:9808 WPA = Web ? Applications?

Brant

That's a shame, because the last time I had to brave their own support forums it was in no way a pleasant experience

user30

@badp WPA = WordPress Answers

badp

20:41

oh.

alexanderpas

:9808 just build quality, and they will come naturally.

the important thing is you come up at first in google ;)

badp

I guess that if it was proposed today, WP would've been closed as a tag of WA.... okay, not really.

alexanderpas

:9818 true, but that's only the programmers, what about the users.

user30

At the moment I reckon [wordpress] on SO gets more traffic than WP

badp

@ThomasMcDonald Has WP been announced on the Wordpress mailing lists/forums/whatever?

user30

20:44

@alexanderpas The site is currently being aimed more at developers

user30

With some technical administration as well, I guess

alexanderpas

[plz-install-mah-themez]

user30

@badp One minute, I have a link somewhere

badp

in other news

in The Tavern (General) on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, Oct 13 at 20:07, by balpha

mostly -- the only difference is that now @TheUnhandledException will match you if you've talked in the room in the past seven days, while @The will only match you if you've talked in the past two days

this should partially answer @GnomeSlice's questions on @-replies

user30

I think as well another issue with the current public beta sites is the lack of chat

user30

20:49

I would say that the chat was more important during the public beta, while the site is still being refined

badp

well, we did just fine on the MSO chat @ThomasMcDonald

indeed...

this was on MSO before we were moved here :)

user30

hmm

user30

I shall have to go have a look

user30

I personally think WP would be better served under a different SE, but can involve that many different factors

alexanderpas

lol @ who?

user30

20:54

@badp I think this is the extent of the WPA discussion - lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/2010-June/032242.html

badp

That was dry :)

user30

You've read the entire thread?

badp

oh.

user30

It's basically some official looking people with @automattic.com mail addresses (+ a few others) saying it will splinter the community, some fence-sitters, and then some people behind it

user30

Which doesn't really make for a great start

user30

20:56

Anyway, enough offtopic. TF2 anyone?

alexanderpas

sure (I suck ;))

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