CONLOQVIVM

Evening all, and welcome to private beta.

I'm ArtOfCode, and I'll be your host— wait, wrong speech.

Private betas are so much fun

6:38 PM

So excited =)

Wrzlprmft

6:51 PM

Salve.

Does anybody have an idea why the Favicon is Lo.?

@Wrzlprmft I think it's La

oh, both lowercase.

Fixed that for you

Then the hinting for the favicon is seriously broken.

6:59 PM

Query strings and weird characters (like @) don't play nice with oneboxes.

@Wrzlprmft Yeah, but you try compressing that down to 16x16 and still having it readable... they probably tried and couldn't make it work, so they compromised.

Wrzlprmft

@ArtOfCode It can be done. On that size you usually draw the pixels by hand anyway. And we are not the only site with an a in its name I suppose.

Aye.

Wrzlprmft

@Nathaniel: I somewhat disagree with nouns for this question: It also applies to adjectives and pronouns. (Though there probably some word classification paradigms, where the latter are nouns.)

chirlu

@Wrzlprmft The small favicon appears to me as having uppercase L and a lowercase “cc a”.

@Wrzlprmft You're right; feel free to remove it

A: Why are there no native Latin words with a Z?

7:45 PM

1

Z, allegedly, has a strange story. It was a Latin letter, then it became obsolete and was removed. It was then added back to accommodate words derived from Greek According to a few sources, one of them Dictionary.com, Z was actually included in the original Latin alphabet, which itself was a de...

Can anyone crosscheck me here and make sure I'm not spouting nonsense?

chirlu

I love the six-character rule for “substantial edits”.

8:05 PM

Yeah, it's actually "not inconsequential" edits.

9:15 PM

OMG there is a chat room!

Quid mirum!

We can rename this chat room, right? Call it "lorem ipsum" or something, perhaps? :)

Furcifer!

Sceleste!

@Nathaniel There are few things I hate more than pseudo-Latin that I begin to read every time I see it—and then my brain fizzles out. It feels like short-circuiting.

Why can't they just, I don't know, use the Aeneid for filler texts?

2

@Cerberus That's a bandwagon I could get on

Good.

The Odyssey's fine too.

Or why not the Epic of Gilgamesh?

9:51 PM

I haven't taken Latin in four years. I can tell already that this is going to be an interesting private beta experience.

Michael Wolf

Salvete, dudes.

I'm stoked that this SE finally has gotten somewhere.

Q: What should we call the chatroom?

0

We have a chatroom, which a number of users have already found. Along with that there came the suggestion that we could change the name - perhaps to Lorem Ispum. However, I'm sure we can do better than that. Propose names here as answers - one name per answer - and the voting can show which we s...

Michael Wolf

I followed the (a?) previous attempt closely, but it never made it out of proposal.

ArtOfCode has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

We seem to be seeing a downward trend in question voting (or a downward trend on question quality).

Q: Should we tag geographical/contextual variations in Latin language, and if so, how?

10:08 PM

2

We already have the following meta questions for establishing tag scope: Latin language eras How should a tag for changes in Latin language through time be named? The former is a static classification, while the latter focuses on the changes that occurred over time. Should we also institute ...

discussion tags

4

Q: Wait few days with accepting answers

There are good reasons to vote early and often, but accepting answers is somewhat different from voting. For the first few (two?) days of each private meta the focus is on asking questions, not answering. The experts who would be able to give detailed, well researched answers will probably do it ...

discussion accepted-answer

1

Q: Could this question on Latin's transformation into Romance languages be narrowed and made in-scope?

This question was just recently closed as off-topic: When and why did Latin mutate into Italian, French and Spanish? I think the 'too broad' closure was appropriate. In terms of defining the scope of Latin.SE more clearly, though, I'm wondering if the question might be narrowed/split into a for...

discussion scope

4

Q: What should we call the chatroom?

We have a chatroom, which a number of users have already found. Along with that there came the suggestion that we could change the name - perhaps to Lorem Ispum. However, I'm sure we can do better than that. Propose names here as answers - one name per answer - and the voting can show which we s...

discussion chat

0

Q: Should site policy require that all-Latin questions also include an English translation?

As an extension of the question Should all-Latin questions be permitted?, where the consensus answer appears to be "Yes!", should we define as part of the site policy that any all-Latin questions must include an English translation for the benefit of those not fluent in Latin? As well: should su...

discussion

Q: What do we do with translation requests?

10:26 PM

1

Related question on Area51: Are requests for translation on topic or not? The last thing I want is for this site to turn into a version of Reddit, where there are more tattoo translation requests than questions from actual students. So it seems wise that we come up with some guidelines around w...

discussion

Q: The Real Essential Questions of Every Beta

I know the blog post about the 7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta still pops up, but it's long been out of date. Here's the newer, recommended set of questions:

72

The blog post Seven Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta gets linked to prominently from every beta's meta. However, this blog post is somewhat inaccurate and misdirects new users. In almost every beta, the site design question, for example, gets asked and undergoes a fair bit of discussion eve...

support faq beta-phase beta-sites

Q: What should we call the chatroom?

10:48 PM

Since this is a fairly important and potentially final decision: do we have any way of making this a featured meta question? — Lilienthal 48 secs ago

Referring to:

6

We have a chatroom, which a number of users have already found. Along with that there came the suggestion that we could change the name - perhaps to Lorem Ispum. However, I'm sure we can do better than that. Propose names here as answers - one name per answer - and the voting can show which we s...

discussion chat

@HDE226868 Yeah, that's how all new sites start out

@Lilienthal It's not final at all :)

@ArtOfCode True, but once one is picked, it would probably take quite a bit of effort to change it again.

Effort to establish a new consensus that is.

@Lilienthal Usually not

@Lilienthal We'd probably just do it here in the chatroom if it came to it, when the chat community has developed.

10:51 PM

People are generally fairly easy going about chatroom names

room topic changed to oooh fancy name: General discussion for latin.stackexchange.com (no tags)

room topic changed to Latin Language: General discussion for latin.stackexchange.com (no tags)

>.>

:)

@Undo True, it's been a while since I was active in a good private beta.

Since this is a fairly visible decision and chat users aren't necessarily active on meta, do we have any way of making this a featured meta question? — Lilienthal 9 secs ago

10:53 PM

This one actually seems fairly healthy

There. :)

sumelic

@Cerberus: Salve! Isn't this an exciting time :)

Q: For learning Latin with 0% experience, which are the best books or resources in Spanish?

-1

The entitled question is motivated by my cousin, bilingual in English and Spanish, who is assuming that learning Latin from Spanish is easier, because Spanish offers more Positive Transfer and less Linguistic Distance (as a Romance Language) to Latin. My cousin will focus on prescriptive gramm...

learning spanish

@Lilienthal Flag and ask a CM to make it featured.

Do we want book/curriculum rec questions?

10:54 PM

@Undo I'm gonna say no

Meta post time

I am too. Writing a meta question

for someone who isn't me

Egad. I am surrounded by blue names.

Now, now. Bringing controversial topics to meta is not a race.

3

But I call dibs on bringing up the idea of . . . oh, wait, someone beat me to it.

Recommendation questions are off-topic on all of SE aren't they? Software Recs being the one notable exception.

10:57 PM

@HDE226868 You mean I can't race @Undo to write something about ~~gun control~~ tagging?

@Lilienthal And hardware recs.

@Lilienthal Hardware Recommendations

Ah yeah, that launched recently didn't it?

Late last year

3 months old now

10:57 PM

And dying isn't it?

@ArtOfCode ooh ooh wanna talk gun control? :P

We're both mods there...

@Lilienthal Not really

@ArtOfCode Well, you can. It'll just be amusing to see you both post the same question within seconds of each other.

Other sites do recommendations, though.

Hardware Recommendations – hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com

Though I could see questions like 'Is Book X a reliable reference [on Y]?" being useful.

167

Beta Q&A site for people seeking specific hardware recommendations.

Currently in public beta.

10:58 PM

Physics and other science sites for books, various resources for Worldbuilding. . .

@Lilienthal It's not the booming success that SR is, but that was predictable. More software people on a network headed by SO than hardware people.

Seems to be dying to me.

@Undo we could talk about Jeb Bush and his opposite instead, it'd be much the same debate.

@Lilienthal It's doing fine. Compare it with other beta sites.

And it's a rec site, which was never really going to have a booming start.

10:59 PM

We're small, but the community is enough to keep the trash taken out and the floors swept. That's what matters.

@Undo The community? ;)

I suppose the main problem I see with it is that I'm not convinced it's great for a Q&A site. I was active on a hardware rec forum for a while and 90% of the questions can be resolved by referring people to a list of recommended builds.

Pretty much all one user...

And it ages so incredibly fast.

@ArtOfCode well, at least they put little flashy lights on things so that moderators can do it.

11:01 PM

@Lilienthal infinite potential questions, then ;)

@ArtOfCode I can think of a couple non-mods that are fairly active.

@Undo aye, but only one who really hunts down rubbish. My mod work isn't done off my own bat, it's mostly off the flags :)

Q: Are requests for book recommendations on-topic?

Maybe, yeah

0

Prompted by For learning Latin with 0% experience, which are the best books or resources in Spanish?, I think we should decide this early: Do we accept recommendation requests? There are a few points to consider: Recommendation requests require a whole new level of moderation to keep them from...

discussion scope questions

experienced in handling recommendation questions Don't we have most of the mod teams of HR and SR? — ArtOfCode 1 min ago

@ArtOfCode Pretty sure it's just you and me

Which I guess is half, if I'm allowed to count twice :P

I'll take half :)

Q: Do we want questions about the relationships between Latin and other languages to be on- or off-topic?

0

As a more general version of this question, do we want the relationships between Latin and other languages (both preceding and following) to be on-topic? I'd answer yes to both.

discussion scope

11:07 PM

Finally, someone asking a meta question and providing his own answer so I have something to upvote. :)

First question entirely in Latin:

0

Q: "Ignis solis propinqui"

Linguā Latīnā Per Sē Illūstrāta Ioānnis Ørbergī paginā 207 scrīptum est: Ignis sōlis propinquī ceram, quā pennae iūnctae et fīxae erant, mollīvit et pennās ussit. Cur nōn "propinquus" dīcit?

grammar

I'm surprised at how much of that I can read, given it's 3-4 years since I did very basic Latin.

I think I can read most of it, but with all those diacritics I don't really want to...

Is use of those encouraged on the site?

I like macrons.

They're useful for students.

I'm partial to macarons myself.

4

11:13 PM

@Lilienthal You might consider asking a meta question on that.

First image (apart from the logo) linked in chat, let's make it a good one:

@Undo Writing now

(First gif as well, I'm on a roll!)

@sumelic Valde!

@Lilienthal I'm with you.

Err, vado tecum.