The Bridge

tzenes

07:00

in my poor excuse for an analogy, anything that isn't serious QA is a distraction

the distraction gets large enough and the people looking for serious QA go away

they find a place without distractions

Mechko

sigh ok. I guess I'm pretty much done with the site then :(

tzenes

I might suggest you just use it as a QA site

ironically, that is exactly what I do

Mechko

There are other places I can ask my questions and most of my questions I can google anyways

Or I can just sit in IRC which will do most of what I want in any case

tzenes

that's your decision

Mechko

of course it's my decision

tzenes

07:02

I meant its not terribly relevant to the conversation, and there is no real reason to tell me either.

FallenAngelEyes

That's the main hurdle I have with using it as a Q&A as well. I can google and find my answers quicker than someone can give an answer most of the time.

tzenes

Then go elsewhere?

I find this site to be faster and more accurate

and what's more I can judge the quality of the information better

which I can't do on google

Mechko

Actually, you can on google if you know where to look. I mean, I'll use this site if I ever have questions on DF, but apart from that I haven't gotten an answer from here that I couldn't have gotten in 10-15 minutes of googling at best. And my questions aren't exactly obscure or unpopular given that average +6 on them.

tzenes

It sounds like you don't need QA at all, sounds like you just want Forums. So maybe you should go use forums, and stop trying to make QA into forums?

Mechko

No. I want a moderated community where the knowledge is present easily that isn't prey to trolls because it is well moderated and has an active community of intelligent individuals. SE is the perfect platform for it, if people were willing to try it out, imho

It's very different to a forum

tzenes

07:10

nothing you said is different than the forum. You can have well moderated forums, you can have ones with tons of information. There are even ones with intelligent individuals. Nothing about SE is necessary there. What SE does well is solve the needle in a haystack problem.

Actually you just gave me a great idea

I think I have discovered a way to kill game-rec perminately

Mechko

I want a moderated community where the knowledge is present easily how is that not the needle in the haystack problem?

how is that not SE, for that matter?

tzenes

I'm not saying its not SE, merely that it is very general

the needle hay stack problem isn't the result of moderation, that's requisite on any site with human beings

its not even making the knowledge present

its showing which knowledge is useful and which isn't

Mechko

ok lets try this: community where the knowledge is present easily

tzenes

though a karma system could do just as good

actually I think the thing it does best is discourage discussion

because if you need knowledge then discussion is just hay

Mechko

no that's the moderators, not the engine. If you don't want to see discussion just add subjective to ignored tags.

tzenes

07:15

a game-rec is subjective

but that wasn't my point

the SE engine makes it hard to have a conversation

threading is poor

you have character limits

answers are placed according to votes and no chronology

its difficulty to carry on a discussion

Mechko

I don't want a bleeding conversation... I want answers to questions that don't have a single objective answer

tzenes

you have comments, but they actually get locked from edits

I didn't say you did

I merely said that's what SE is good at getting rid of

Mechko

That doesn't make a whit of difference to subjective questions though.

tzenes

nope, not even the slightest

which is what I'm getting at. What SE is good at makes no difference to what you want, so why SE?

Mechko

I will copy paste it again

I want a moderated community where the knowledge is present easily

tzenes

07:18

feel free, I'll copy and paste my answer

the needle hay stack problem isn't the result of moderation, that's requisite on any site with human beings
its not even making the knowledge present
its showing which knowledge is useful and which isn't

Mechko

yes, and you're ignoring the point again

moderated isn't the keyword

the key is where the knowledge is present easily

tzenes

its not even making the knowledge present
its showing which knowledge is useful and which isn't

Ivo Flipse

morning everyone

tzenes

morning Ivo

Mechko

Morning

Ivo Flipse

07:22

I hope I don't have to read for 15 mins to catch up again?

tzenes

that must mean its time for me to go to bed

maybe 10 minutes

sadly grace wasn't here

Mechko

don't worry. Most of it was me being trolled and ignored.

Ivo Flipse

well see you in 8 hours or so :P

tzenes

haha

Mechko is soar that the site is not what he wants it to be

and I dont' think he cares for me very much

but that's really neither here nor there

FallenAngelEyes

morning Ivo

tzenes

07:23

I came up with an idea

and I think its a good one

@Ivo meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/776/…

its under the comments

Ivo Flipse

I'll have a look then :)

> I have a different suggestion. What if game-rec's were allowed under the premise that they had to have a bounty of (say) 500 rep. It would prevent new users from asking game-recs. It would decrease the number of game rec's that could be asked. And the person asking would have to select one as the "best" answer. –

someone would have to 'pay' to ask/reopen one

tzenes

yes

I think it will kill game-rec

Ivo Flipse

yeah I aint wasting 500 rep on 1 question :P

tzenes

when you are forced to consider the value of that much rep. Certainly in time and effort, you won't carelessly ask for game recommendations

Mechko

meh it would kill game recs, but it wouldn't solve the problem of someone boosting gaming out of the niche it's only half occupying

tzenes

07:26

@Mechko like I said if its so easy, feel free. You can make a lot of money if you can

Mechko

I'm a cs major, not a web developer

tzenes

They don't have server programming in your degree?

Mechko

I speak three varieties of lisp, haskell. c and java are only there to teach first years, and I work mainly in math and algorithms

Ivo Flipse

Wordpress can get you anywhere @Mechko ;) :P

tzenes

Wow, my degree came with a lot more

Mechko

07:28

lol I use tumblr. much easier and it's free to host.

I've been at it for 2 years

I transfered from math and philosophy

Ivo Flipse

but @mechko if I take an example of Gametrailers.com

they have lists too, but you know how much info you get from each 'answer' there

tzenes

I like the GameFAQs ones better

they have a karma system

still worthless, but a step in the right direction

Mechko

yeah, but to have a worthwhile gaming site that takes discussions on the side, you'd need a SE-like setup and minor vote capping

or a slightly different rewards system

tzenes

you do realize that's what a karma system is right?

Ivo Flipse

but our current system works for Q&A @Mechko, so if you need a different system to make lists work, than our system is just not suited

Mechko

07:31

meh that can be accounted for by moderators who wait two days before closing/deleting a question

Ivo Flipse

I was aiming more for the fact that if it's a list/poll people should only vote once, so the best floats to the top

the fact that after the first page, answers disappear into oblivion

Mechko

Anyways. I gotta finish documenting this code. I have a trth sysadmin coming in tomorrow to post my code

I'm kinda stoked that something I wrote is going to be used on wall street, even if it's a very minor piece

Ivo Flipse

the fact that when your answer on a list question is already given, even though it's crap, you will not get attribution for it unless you COMPLETELY change the post

well that is something to be proud off ;)

tzenes

I think accepted answers float

Mechko

I only get 3 grand, but I get to laugh at my friend when I tell her that I am slowly replacing her wall street jobs with little pieces of haskell

Ivo Flipse

07:35

haha, well I dont know how long you had to work for it

tzenes

ew Haskell, why can't you use a nice lisp language like Javascript

Ivo Flipse

but making money while in school always seems like a good thing

4

A: Referring Subjective or Argumentative questions to a personal site?

No, adding links to your site like that would be considered spam. The question is still open and seeking answers (well, now it's inconveniently closed but that is beside my point). You are directing people away from the site to answer elsewhere, splitting the discussion. That is completely contr...

oi Robert wasn't to happy about your suggestion

Mechko

heh. Grad school is gonna give me 30k a year

tzenes

ooo, Robert came down hard

I guess community relations is kinda his job

and when you're in PR...

Ivo Flipse

I'd say it would be ok if you started a OSQA site, but like he said: you're drawing away users, which 'we' won't like

tzenes

07:38

I don't think he'll like anythign which draws users

Mechko

on the other hand, I'm drawing away the users who want something else.

Ivo Flipse

but that doesn't mean anyone can stop you, they could only prevent you from advertising the site actively

tzenes

I think he's looking at his bottom line and its page hits

Ivo Flipse

perhaps they want both @Mechko and then they have to visit yet another site

tzenes

I think if you built a really good Recommendation site, we could make an argument for linking it

because then we could say it fills this other need really well

but right now its just a blag

Mechko

07:40

it's a dead blag which isn't going to be written to until finals week next sem

FallenAngelEyes

yesterday's xkcd was awesome

tzenes

Mechko

@FallenAngelEyes edit that post. You have a spurious "yesterday's" in there

FallenAngelEyes

lol

tzenes

its ok I linked it for you

Ivo Flipse

07:42

perhaps we need a 4th place @tzenes, a phpbb forum, a place where subjective questions die

tzenes

haha

no no no, we need a 5th place

where we share photos of us from bars

and write on eachother's profiles

Ivo Flipse

wow you wanna go to a bar with me? :P

tzenes

oh baby

when are you hitting the west coast?

Ivo Flipse

27 sept-21 oct

tzenes

Oh I might be around then

let me know when it gets closer

Ivo Flipse

07:44

will do :)

where should I place my amazon orders ;) :P

tzenes

haha

alright, bed time or I won't be able to make the webservers... serve things

Ivo Flipse

good luck and good night

but @mechko if game-rec is what you're after, why not propose one on area51?

but if you think the site is starting to suck, then you probably don't like starcraft or have any questions about games you currently play (if any)

Mechko

I have questions about DF :-p but none about starcraft

Ivo Flipse

and does it work for your DF questions?

Mechko

unfortunately DF is the only thing it DOES work for

I have questions about MW2 which aren't answered, and in general, I have questions pertaining to types of games

Ivo Flipse

07:52

hmmm well that's important feedback

Mechko

And more than half my questions are +5, they're all answered, etc. But I want to be able to ask about WHY X is implemented as such. I want to be able to use the site to LEARN stuff like I do with SO

I want to be able to ask a question that basically says 'teach me somehting new'

Ivo Flipse

then you should ask those on Game Dev

a gamer is unlikely to know a truthful/correct answer

Mechko

oh I'm not talking about code implementation

I'm more thinking about game mechanics.

I also think that questions that are asking about maps on a certain game, ways to extend the game etc are important

but they are also getting closed

Ivo Flipse

is that site only about coding? I'd say it would allow discussion on mechanics as well

Mechko

not sure. I haven't spent time there, but I suspect that gamers will know just as much about it as game-devs

I think game-rec based on a game and game-rec based on attributes are two different beasts too

game-rec based on attributes is beneficial, game-rec based on game is harmful because of the potential of duplicates

I find myself closing more than half the questions that trickle in while I'm online

Ivo Flipse

07:58

well I stand by the point we simply don't need them and shouldn't be trying to do everything

Mechko

I think we should be trying to do a little more and we DO need game-recs if we want a permanent community.

Ivo Flipse

Id say: hold out for the holiday season and see if things improve

we can always change direction

Mechko

otherwise we have 90% of our users at less than 300 rep from one or two questions and only 10% that can answer the real questions

Ivo Flipse

and how many page views?

Mechko

like 5000 ish

Ivo Flipse

08:01

from people who don't have an account but nonetheless get a great answer

Mechko

I'm thinking about the potential of the site. I think in the SE framework as a piece of SE it's not going to reach it's potential

whereas in a Gaming framework USING the SE as a component, it could rival just about any game site out there.

if you were to, for example, add a slashdot-esque segment to the site that would work too

There's a preying mantis on my desk

ok it's 6pm

gotta finish this page and go home

tc

btw, I think someone rep-botted me today

127 rep from random questions in a space of 10 minutes

Ivo Flipse

I hope not for you

because you'll have them removed

goof luck on your work anyway!

FallenAngelEyes

08:25

quiet morning is quiet

Ivo Flipse

09:05

yup and I need to drive to the hospital

so ill leave it a bit quiet

FallenAngelEyes

Eep, hope all is well

Arda Xi

11:12

afternoon all

Arda Xi

11:49

okay.. so.. my dwarves are out of booze, the water is frozen and I have no barrels or wood or metal

am I doomed?

Ivo Flipse

you are

Arda Xi

they're all slowly dying

oh great, now they're killing each other

what do you know, losing is fun

Oak

12:10

Ah, finally finished reading backlog

Ivo Flipse

haha, @tzenes creates quite some reading material

Oak

Yep

Oak

Also spirits got a little high

Arda Xi

reclaimed my fortress, the dorf corpses are everywhere

Oak

I wonder who moderates chat

Oak

12:12

Though it was okay at the end

Ivo Flipse

the MSO mods and everyone who's a mod on another site

Arda Xi

metadiamonds

Ivo Flipse

well he was a bit harsh and to the person, but still we don't need these questions and we shouldn't want them either

Oak

Which questions?

Oak

[game-rec] ones?

Ivo Flipse

12:14

all those open ended questions

Oak

I was thinking about adding a meta question which attempts to finalize the subject once and for all, then change the motd to link to it, so we'd get a lot of users' attention

Oak

motd being the "got a question about the site itself? meta.gaming is the place to talk about things like what questions are appropriate, what tags we should use, etc." message

Oak

Cause none of the ~10 meta questions on that topic so far seem to get a consensus

Ivo Flipse

well mine didn't get any real arguments against it

funny enough

people only oppose it on chat

but feel free to start another discussion, as long as we can end it

Oak

Are you talking about this?

Oak

12:25

10

Q: Voting on the future of list of X questions

As of now we have several questions discussing what to do with list of X and games-rec questions: Here's a summary of all that has been said before (and was upvoted): Should we allow poll questions - Result: no, we shouldn't Best/favourite/subjective list type questions - Result: no potential ...

Ivo Flipse

yeah

Oak

Well to be honest I didn't quite understand the point of that question.

Oak

It seems to just be a bunch of links to other discussions

Oak

with the saying that whatever is not acceptable according to these discussions should be closed

Oak

but many of those discussions have not reached a conclusion

Oak

12:26

... or did I miss out on your meaning completely?

Ivo Flipse

well either you could add an answer, suggesting how to change it (or just change it since it's CW) or you start a new question where you question whether this is the way to do it ;)

Oak

I just didn't understand the point of your question

Oak

Maybe you could clarify?

Ivo Flipse

I want list questions to die, to disappear and stay away

so I went through all previous discussions on the same topic which didn't lead to a conclusion and drew my conclusion: they should disappear

and as @Macha comments: So, how many votes are enough? Should we have yes/no answers, and take the majority there?

so yes, it's probably not optimal nor very clear, so any suggestions are off course welcome

Oak

So your point is that all of these questions should disappear?

Oak

12:30

Because you wrote "My conclusion: all list questions should be closed unless they pass these strict guidelines."

Gnoupi

bit extreme

Oak

But what guidelines did you mean?

Gnoupi

list questions can actually be useful, all we need is them not to be too vague

Ivo Flipse

they shouldn't be subjective, argumentative or require extended discussion, because there are no measurable rules for answering or voting
it should generally cover:
game strategies and hints
software tools commonly used by gamers
matters that are unique to gamers
any kind of problem that makes you stop playing
it shouldn't be indiscriminate, so there should be a limited amount of possible answers. In short, the fewer answers possible, the better.
it should ask for a solution
we can't eliminate them all (as commented by Gnoupi), look at Super User or Stack Overflow for reference

I tried to separate those, but then I had to rewrite everything (which is what you're asking now :P)

Gnoupi

you put too many links anyway in your post :]

Ivo Flipse

12:33

well @Gnoupi I know that there are useful ones, but until they are made useful and raise the quality bar for new ones, I think we shouldn't allow more

Gnoupi

what makes you think the current ones are better than new ones?

Gnoupi

seriously, remember SU at the beginning, after a while you reach anyway a point where people will just stop putting such vague questions.

Gnoupi

it's an annoying matter only for regulars, at the beginning

Gnoupi

but in the end, the specific questions are useful to the author, and possibly someone with the same need. And vague ones are reaching anyway a "too many answers", allowing mods to lock them when poked

Gnoupi

I havent seen a "must have" on the SU front page for 3 months

Ivo Flipse

12:35

no I even think some of the most popular ones are the worst

here's an example from gadgets that I think is really poor:

gadgets.stackexchange.com/questions/93/…

Gnoupi

the only "problem", is that the more vague they are, the more popular they get, and they dominate the "sort by votes" views on questions

Gnoupi

like the "hidden features" on SO

Gnoupi

yes, it's a typical must have, this gadget one

Ivo Flipse

or this one:

60

Q: What is your most-used web application?

What is your most-used web application? Fairly straightforward question. It shouldn't be too hard to guess what will come out on top, but I'm interested to see what else gets high votes. ONE entry per post and NO duplicates. The following applications have already been listed. Gmail Google Rea...

web-apps

I mean people? explain why the hell you think it's useful, what the hell is it? why should I even bother clicking the link?

Gnoupi

when my brother got an iPhone i showed him the "must have iphone apps" question, on SU at this moment

Gnoupi

12:38

it showed him some he didnt know

Gnoupi

i know, there are better places for that, and voting system is bad for these questions

Gnoupi

but the point is, they can be useful, not in ranking the most used

Gnoupi

but in discovering some you might not know

Ivo Flipse

well those questions would be more useful if there was a certain level of quality in the answers

Gnoupi

the "must have windows programs" on SU sure contains the obvious firefox, chrome, vlc, etc, but you find also things which are not so obvious

Gnoupi

12:40

then when you see such question, dont jump to close it, jump to edit it

Gnoupi

force the 1 proposition per answer

Gnoupi

the write a short description, maybe add a screenshot

Ivo Flipse

I tried doing it with my tower defense question and best pc games

Gnoupi

and complain in comments to people who don't respect that

Ivo Flipse

the tower defense one looked nice

Gnoupi

12:41

if you can't prevent the "must have", at least make it look good

Ivo Flipse

the pc one got shot down before answers could be written :P

Gnoupi

and if there are already answers, don't hesitate to go the extra mile and improve them

Ivo Flipse

well @Gnoupi give me a question you think is worth saving and I'll try to invest some time in it

though I'm not sure I have editing powers (anymore)

Gnoupi

so that next additions can be on the same model

Ivo Flipse

yet another reason I want to be mod everywhere :P

Gnoupi

12:44

so how is working at home going?

Ivo Flipse

holy crap @TomWij is busy on Super User (check the activity)

very poorly, my GF had to get some teeth pulled, so needed to drive her to the hospital

only read like 5 pages today

Gnoupi

you might want to close the chat and get to work, too :p

Ivo Flipse

too? :P you mean, please let me be and let me get back to work

Gnoupi

anyway, that's what I'm going to do, myself. laters

Oak

Cya

Oak

12:48

Damnit I can't decide on an SVN provider

Ivo Flipse

svn? version management?

Oak

Yea

Oak

Off-topic here though, just venting.

Ivo Flipse

Kiln :P that's what Joel will tell you

and actually for what you get with it, it's quite a nice package

Oak

Yea well, I'm not going to ditch subversion mid-project

Ivo Flipse

12:52

haha, if you can't do that, isn't there something wrong with your version management? :P

Oak

When there are 2 users of which only 1 actually commits code

Oak

Then most advantages fly out the window

Oak

And I won't waste time on changing from a perfectly-fine solution to another

Ivo Flipse

just a side-note: I know nothing about programming other than some hacking in Matlab and now learning Python, so don't trust me

Oak

:)

Ivo Flipse

12:55

though that's not entirely true, I did bother reading things like Pragmatic Programmer and some UI things, but regarding SVN, you shouldn't trust me

though if you need someone to test your final product ;-)

what's the project?

Oak

Thesis

Oak

I've been using my university to host the SVN repo so far, but they don't do a particularly good job

Oak

And my thesis is very programming-oriented so I'll spare you the details :)

Ivo Flipse

what makes you think I wouldn't be interested :P and you should be able to explain it in lay man's terms anyway else you're going to have a hard time on your thesis (I know this from painful experiences)

Oak

13:11

Well, no reason really.

Oak

It's basically about harvesting code samples from online repositories in order to programmatically learn how to use sequence-based APIs

Oak

And then presenting the results of that learning to a programmer, to help him write code using that API.

Arda Xi

argh, what hope have you to use a library if its samples won't work... gaming is so much easier

Oak

Well said. I think I'm going to go home and play something :)

Oak

later guys

Ivo Flipse

13:15

later :)

Arda Xi

interesting, I can now browse my registry like a file system

McKay

14:34

Should I edit that question to say "How should I feed a cat?"? the "in stendhal" is superfluous because of the tags :D

Arda Xi

Definitely, we need a lot of those questions, they do well on stackexchange.com

just like how to know if a corpse is safe to eat and how to pray to god

McKay

done

yeah, that's what I was thinking.

But I've taken some flack for editing

in the recent past.

Arda Xi

from me as well if I recall correctly

McKay

it seemed like it was from everyone, but I didn't recall who specifiically.

Ivo Flipse

too many of these catchy titles can start to become misleading too though

Arda Xi

14:44

why? that's what tags are for :)

all the title needs to do really is make people click it, and attempt not to put them off by a great difference between the title and the question

Ivo Flipse

don't you personally hate links that draw you in and then turn out to be 'empty'

Arda Xi

as I said, there shouldn't be a big difference between title and question

Ivo Flipse

true, you win ;)

Arda Xi

hmm, according to the roguelike article on wikipedia, an FPS could be a roguelike

as long as it's an RPGFPS

McKay

@IvoFlipse You just wanted to know how to kill the president, didn't you?

Ivo Flipse

14:49

well I don't have a grudge against Obama

McKay

You were wondering how prayer works?

Arda Xi

who?

McKay

@IvoFlipse was complaining about questions being empty. So I first supposed that maybe he wanted to kill the president, then that he wanted to learn how to pray.

27

Q: How to pray safely (to god)?

Can somebody please give me a good overview of the prayer system in Nethack? From what I understand, pray once and your god is more than happy to help you out, but if you pray again you get punished pretty severely for being so needy. Basically, how does Nethack prayer work?

roguelikes nethack

I can't find the president question anymore.

Arda Xi

either that roguelike question was asked before or I just had a 2-step deja vu

McKay

I don't think we've had that question before?

Arda Xi

14:59

odd.. I just felt like I had a deja-vu about it before :S

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