Puzzles Etc.

Matt

19:00

if user A has a bunch of rep and only likes riddles about the number 3, then those will get his bounties. other users see this and start tailoring their puzzles, or abandoning larger ideas in favor of such riddles

Deusovi

We want to reward questions, not just give them attention.

Zandar

Giving the points to the asker would actually lessen that, if anything.

question_asker

all I'm saying is that I think that rep that belongs to you is yours to do what you please with - there's realistically only so much of it you can gain and rewarding things that you like with it seems like a totally reasonable thing to do

Matt

that's the kind of thing I'm thinking about.

Deusovi

Matt, this is already a potential problem - not just here, but on other SE sites. Yet it doesn't happen, or if it does it's so rare that it doesn't matter.

manshu

19:01

0

A: Can we award bounties to questions?

Is this a feature-request worth asking about? I think yes. There is nothing wrong in asking a feature request. And it seems like this feature request is good for Puzzling SE. Is it too difficult to implement a system where questions can be awarded bounties as well? I have no idea about...

Zandar

I know, just saying that question bounties aren't going to lead to personal preferences skewing the site any more than currently..

question_asker

it's like telling me we live in a democracy but only letting me vote for one of two people.

manshu

answered

Feel free to add your thoughts.

Matt

how are personal preferences skewing the site already?

Deusovi

As far as we know, they're not.

And bounties on questions shouldn't change that.

question_asker

19:03

(just FYI, I still to this day think one of the most beautiful exercises of bounty-awarding was when @manshu awarded a bounty to the "fart" answer on that one "ice cream" question - not the accepted answer, but the one that the person awarding the bounty thought was best)

manshu

@question_asker It still is my fav. answer.

given by Paul Evans

question_asker

25

Q: I feel no pain, yet silently shriek

I feel no pain Yet silently shriek An airy concoction Your desire I pique A sinful temptation You seldom refuse As I squeal, howl and bellow I delight and amuse Who am I?

Deusovi

yeah, that was actually a good answer too

Jonathan Allan

should the tag be [feature-request] yet or [discussion]

Gordon Allocman

Well, I just came back and saw that shog asked us why we haven't answered questions on how difficult an implementation would be (because we write the site code right?), a yes or no question that is answered by voting (upvoted clearly mean this is a feature worth asking about), and that we haven't given any reasons it should not be done (which means it should be...). What a load

question_asker

19:05

(I like Hugh's answer on that one, too - see? Two good answers on a riddle!)

Deusovi

Welcome back, Gordon

question_asker

@GordonAllocman hahaha yes, he did that thing.

pacoverflow

reminds me of this one: puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/9429/4450

question_asker

I wish I wasn't out of stars to give for the day :(

manshu

Fart answer: An interesting answer.

question_asker

19:09

whaaaaaaaaaaaat

hello @Randal'Thor

manshu

@Randal'Thor Got anything to say about awarding bouties to questions?

It's a hot topic, you know. :D

Jonathan Allan

should we not attempt to follow the format suggested?

172

A: Can we talk about the voting culture here on Meta?

So I've been kinda chewing on this since your email, because... It's one of those simple questions that defies a simple answer. You're not the only person to raise this concern, of course: several respected users, moderators and even co-workers have expressed dismay upon seeing reasonable questio...

manshu

I didn't really read that answer

Deusovi

that question wasn't relevant at all

Zandar

uh

It kinda describes what they want in feature requests

Jonathan Allan

19:12

the answer outlines the hoops we are supposedly meant to jump through no?

Gordon Allocman

I read that a while back when I was using stackoverflow more, it just explains why downvotes are used the way they are

Deusovi

no, that one's talking about trying to fix a problem with SO culture

Rand al'Thor

@question_asker Hullo! :-)

Zandar

The answer was linked, not the question

Gordon Allocman

summed up that answer explains why meta posts can get downvoted, our meta questions have almost all upvotes

Zandar

19:13

I'm pretty sure the description of the feature-request process is why

Deusovi

thank you, Gordon

Zandar

I think the fact that it was linked makes it relevant.

question_asker

I could link a lot of things in here...

Deusovi

yeah, how does linking something suddenly make it relevant?

Gordon Allocman

he may touch on what a good feature request/meta post is, but that is to explain what you didn't do that garnered you downvotes, out meta feature requests have little or no downvotes therefore it isn't very useful. If anything it is his personal specifications on what he likes to see in posts

Jonathan Allan

19:15

hard to tell with the obvious opinion about the site that the user holds.

Rand al'Thor

@pacoverflow Re that comment you linked from JLee, and "(For example, I suspect that CodeNewbie is Rand al'thor)" - I didn't realise anyone seriously believed that!

question_asker

Well, and it's from the perspective of someone who is talking about what they, in the company, do in meetings

Rand al'Thor

For the avoidance of doubt: I've never had an undisclosed sockpuppet on PSE (or any other SE).

Zandar

That answer wasn't written by him.

question_asker

... yes it was?

GentlePurpleRain

19:16

0

Q: What is our reason for wanting bounties on questions?

Please read the answers below and vote on the answer(s) that you feel best describe your opinions on the issue discussed here. There has recently been some discussion about bounties on questions, as per this meta post. Shog9 recently tagged that meta post as status-declined, following the...

feature-request question-quality questions bounty up-votes

Deusovi

I still don't see how that answer is supposedly relevant - it talks about why people get downvotes

Gordon Allocman

Just saw that, great work @GentlePurpleRain

manshu

@Deusovi He posted that link to get a window of time to run away from this room.

question_asker

hahaha

Deusovi

yeah, that was obvious

it's not relevant to the conversation just because it's posted as a link

for instance:

(sound warning) breadfish.co.uk

question_asker

19:18

yeah, like somebody in a cartoon - he posts the link, we look and then turn around to see a shog9-shaped puff of smoke where he was standing

2

Deusovi

@qa: i wish i could star that

manshu

Hi @Emrakul

Welcome :D

@Deusovi I have some stars remaining.

Zandar

Oops, mixed it up with another post apparently. :/

user61230

Waves hello!

user61230

I'm mostly listening at the moment, sorry!

Deusovi

19:19

any thoughts?

GentlePurpleRain

I realized that my question changed a little from when I entered the title to when I completed it. Do you think the title is still relevant, or should I change it?

manshu

@Emrakul Can you add the feature tag on GPR's question on meta (after reading it ofcourse)

Gordon Allocman

I think maybe change the title to "How can we value questions more" or something like that

I'm not very good at formatting, so maybe someone could add an answer (or new meta post) which is add a tab to show recently accepted questions (questions who just accepted an answer) which would give users the "whole story" and let them vote if they were maybe holding out for an answer to be accepted (without having to misuse the favorites feature)

question_asker

@GentlePurpleRain nice work on that question and the proposed answers. I voted based on how I felt (listen, I have a hard time voting something down, even when I know it doesn't reflect negatively on the person)

2

OK so I just made a comment to this effect, but another upside to the +10 question vote is just that... that's the way votes tend to work pretty much everywhere else

user61230

@GentlePurpleRain That's a fantastic question, seriously.

Gordon Allocman

19:26

and by everywhere else you mean other voting sites right? just want to be clear

question_asker

@GordonAllocman well, most places where votes exist

user61230

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm not saying much; I'm reading, thinking, and there's a heck of a lot to read through.

question_asker

I don't know of many (any?) places where votes on different things count differently in a way that's invisible to the user.

Gordon Allocman

@question_asker yeah I just wanted to make sure no one comes and takes that out of context saying "other stacks sites don't work that way!"

question_asker

ah, yeah, good point

I think it's already pretty clear what we don't want to do

based on the voted on the meta question

Deusovi

19:31

yep

manshu

@GentlePurpleRain When did you think about all those other possibilities? :p

Gordon Allocman

I'm still very surprised he even suggested posting an answer solely to bounty it...

Not @GentlePurpleRain , shog that is

Deusovi

agreed, that definitely seems like abuse

question_asker

Yeah, I mean, that strikes me as very in-line with shog's general Thing, though

Deusovi

brushing people off? yeah

question_asker

19:33

he doesn't want to deal with it, so he proposes something that doesn't require any kind of changes

"Cars seem unsafe without seat belts. How about manufacturers build seat belts into the cars?" hmm, you sure you wouldn't be happier just using a rope to tie yourself to the seat? rope is pretty cheap

Gordon Allocman

Man, my question got bumped off the front page, looks like it will be in limbo for a while since I don't really want to edit it or give a hint

Deusovi

that's pretty accurate q_a

manshu

I guess now Shog9 might be satisfied with our request

Deusovi

nah, he won't be

Gordon Allocman

I think a better analogy would be "just turn the seats around so you won't be propelled forward when you crash"

Deusovi

19:35

we didn't do it without using the letter e so it's not gonna work

manshu

haha

cr0

hi puzzlers

Deusovi

hey

question_asker

howdy cr0

user61230

Fundamental system changes are slow and difficult to implement, to be fair. I think a lot of it has to do with that our presentation to this point has been (generally) "no/few potential downsides," which suggests we're being a little hasty in our call for implementation.

question_asker

19:38

PS *100 emoji* to @GordonAllocman and @Deusovi

Deusovi

hm?

question_asker

@Deusovi for the "without using the letter e" thing, and to gordon for the turning the seats around thing. (I'm also out of stars for the day)

user61230

The question "does puzzling work alright as-is without this?" poses a significant barrier as well, given the answer is - pretty much - a resounding "yes."

Deusovi

oh alright

emrakul, we could get puzzling to work by carrier pigeon if we had to

question_asker

@Emrakul Yeah, that's such a dodgy metric, though

Deusovi

19:39

the question is not "does it work" but "could it be better"

3

question_asker

right

user61230

Yeah, I agree!

manshu

13 hours ago, by manshu

just in case no one has noticed, there is a decrease in the number of questions per day on puzzling SE.

Gordon Allocman

@Emrakul it works, but I personally have noticed a decline in amount of puzzles being posted (could easily be simply a correlation with something else) and this would help

user61230

QPD goes up and down on a very long cycle, to be fair.

question_asker

19:40

I think people got too hung up on that, too. There has been a decrease in the number of questions, but we're a small site, and we were always teetering on the edge of QPD

user61230

On the order of weeks to months. The general trend has been up, though, consistently.

question_asker

but people got hung up on that being the reason to suggest this change, rather than a reason this change could be helpful.

manshu

@Emrakul I guess it reached 14 QPD once?

question_asker

It's really less a question of functionality than one of purpose or principle.

Gordon Allocman

I also definitely find it much more valuable to post an answer than a question 99% of the time, where really the person making the question does a lot of work

user61230

19:41

@manshu It varies so wildly sometimes. Here, lemme pull up some info.

cr0

I has a question about a question

Deusovi

go ahead

cr0

I wrote a poem & posted as a puzzle (puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/32373/…), thinking it might be somewhat easy (of course it seems that way to the originator of the puzzle). I wonder, is it so difficult as to not be solved in about a week? Any advice from the forum of puzzlers is appreciated. Maybe I should solve it and critique from there

(Since I'm asking for critique, I could spoil the riddle here if needed)

pacoverflow

Shog9 said we are a "dying site" because of the decrease in questions. If that is true, why did the site graduate recently?

Deusovi

nah

question_asker

19:44

@pacoverflow lol, I missed him saying that.

Deusovi

Did he really?

user61230

@manshu That was a crazy time, jeez. The site really wasn't built to take a hit like that at the time. Lack of users, lack of good quality policies.

manshu

13 hours ago, by Shog9

Being the rep-richest person on a dying site means no more than having all the gold on a desert island.

Deusovi

holy shit I didn't notice that

question_asker

Yeah there was so much going on in last night's chat that I totally glossed over that one

Khale_Kitha

19:45

Something else that should be considered on the bounty/question value thing...

manshu

@Emrakul You mean to say that we graduated too early?

question_asker

13 hours ago, by Shog9

How do you envision offering a bounty that motivates this?

Deusovi

I think we did

but at the same time, I think we need new mods

Khale_Kitha

Raising the value of question still limits daily reputation.

user61230

@manshu Er, no. That was December 2014.

question_asker

19:46

aw crud, it only posted the last one in that trio

Khale_Kitha

But bounties are exempt.

So it needs to be considered when deciding which route to take.

user61230

And, that's not really what Shog was saying there.

Deusovi

Emrakul's great, but Doorknob comes online maybe once every two months and I've not once seen Kevin do anything

Jonathan Allan

@Khale_Kitha true

user61230

What (I think) they were trying to communicate was that, if an ill-considered feature request causes the site serious harm, even if it awards more rep to questioners, we could be faced with a worse problem.

Khale_Kitha

19:46

Kevin closes questions, etc - but I've never seen him talk anywhere.

question_asker

@Emrakul Fair enough, but... this hasn't been "ill-considered" in ages

Deusovi

yeah, we've pretty clearly considered its impact

Gordon Allocman

It seems silly that an accepted answer to an okay puzzle often nets more rep than 2 well written questions

user61230

That's true! I'm just trying to clarify what I think they meant - I don't think they were trying to suggest that Puzzling is a dying site.

Khale_Kitha

I'd go so far as to say 4 questions, Gordon

easily

Gordon Allocman

19:49

Sometimes an accepted answer to bad question as well

Khale_Kitha

Due to the lower number of votes that questions get

question_asker

@Emrakul Fair enough, but it's not unreasonable to take into consideration his considerable disdain for Puzzling

Deusovi

^

question_asker

Maybe he wasn't saying Puzzling is a dying site, but his track record isn't great when it comes to approaching us in good faith.

Jonathan Allan

I certainly read it as a reference to utility more than anything else

question_asker

19:50

I mean, my reading is that, to him, we are noisy children.

Deusovi

Yeah, that's pretty accurate. We're an annoyance, not actual people who want to make SE better.

Jonathan Allan

but agree reading between the lines I see what you mean

yes [para] we cleverly use the SE model to make something different

question_asker

Also, I haven't been convinced of how this would break anything

Deusovi

he never said how it would be bad

question_asker

Which is not to say it can't! It seems like he's trying to get us to make that argument, so that he can say "see? told you it wouldn't work"

ok, maybe that was bad faith of me

Deusovi

19:54

nah

Gordon Allocman

I'm going to shamelessly plug my question while there is a lot of chat activity: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/32575/…

Deusovi

we started in good faith but then he ruined it by blatantly ignoring everything we said

manshu

Not only ignored but abused us too.

Gordon Allocman

Also I feel like we should change topics since this isn't really accomplishing anything but making us more mad

Deusovi

tbh i think it's fine

question_asker

19:56

fair enough, though I was absolutely perplexed by something else he said (and @WesleySitu's answer on that meta question made me think of it again)

Deusovi

hm?

question_asker

13 hours ago, by Shog9

so you wanna see a great question about... I donno... You wanna see a puzzle involving horses. Maybe horses that aren't made of meat. You're not sure how this would work out, but you're pretty sure there's something there.

Deusovi

yeah, i didn't get that either

does he not understand the concept of a puzzle?

user61230

To be fair, it's been less than an hour, but I notice the scores are equal on GPR's question for improved question bountying and +10 on questions. Is it possible +10 for questions would largely render question bountying unneeded?

question_asker

Like, I know that was directed at Alconja and manshu (since they were the ones talking at the time), but... who is saying this? Who is saying "I want to encourage puzzles of a certain type by offering bounties"?

Deusovi

19:59

Wesley was saying that, q_a

Khale_Kitha

Personally, Emrakul, I found a post on the original Meta site suggesting +15/-5 for certain sites where question values are highly regarded to be a fair idea.

question_asker

@Deusovi Well I mean at the time he said that

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