The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Marvin

00:43

1

Q: Do we really need the [characters] tag?

Do we really need the characters tag? Going through some of the questions, I can't seem to figure out what, if anything, this tag is adding that makes these questions distinct. It seems like a meta tag. Do we need this tag? If not, can we have Charizard use Fire Blast to burninate it?

Mithrandir

02:41

@TheLethalCarrot People will always have different definitions of what's "obvious". In fact, I'd consider the case under consideration obvious (and cast a vote to reflect that). As far as I know, there is no policy against what is colloquially known as "the meta effect".

Alex

03:19

Perhaps part of the issue is that users with enough reputation to vote would likely not have raised the issue on Meta, and would have just voted on the question itself. I brought it to Meta because I didn't have the option of voting to reopen.

Jalapeno Nachos

06:42

@doppelgreener no worries, thanks :)

SQB

06:59

> Stephen Fry: […] Harry saw his parents die, so why hasn't he been able to see the Thestrals before?

JK Rowling: [JKR answer]

Mithrandir

@SQB ...I of course haven't been just skipping over some words for the past four years, have I?

SQB

That's the accepted answer. Other answers state that the witness needs to understand what they're witnessing.

@Mithrandir no, I don't think you have.

So I'm curious what still needs to be answered.

For the record, I do agree that questions are dupliclosed too hastily sometimes, I'm just curious why you feel your question isn't answered by the answers to the original.

Mithrandir

I still don't like the WoG answer, as it doesn't explain how it hasn't sunk in. How has it not sunk in - he's been dealing with the Dursleys his whole life, and once he sees e.g. the Burrow, he knows what he's lost. Why, then, has it not "sunk in"?

SQB

07:14

@Mithrandir then edit that in (or re-ask with that included). Informally, I'd say that he didn't actually knowingly witness his mother's death. The effects of his parents' deaths have sunk in, but that's different from actually witnessing someone die.

Mithrandir

At this point, I'd have to ask a new a question.

Which... I might do.

SQB

Probably. Although your question shouldn't have been deleted. It currently has 2 un-delete votes.

@Mithrandir If you do, reference the other question (not your old one, but its dupe-target) and address why it doesn't answer your question.

Mithrandir

Yeah, otherwise I'd end up with another question closed as a dupe of that one ;)

SQB

Exactly.

Mithrandir

flag-pls, del-pls | NaA / Borderline R/A/spam | Who was it in the black and white photo on The Doctor's desk?

SQB

07:19

Flagged as spam.

Not sure if it really was spam, but with useless content like this, I like to err against it.

Even without a link, I assume they're either "selling" something, or trying to confuse spam filters.

They did go to the trouble of creating an account.

TheLethalCarrot

07:55

@Mithrandir When the votes are clearly split 60/40 it is not obvious, when the meta posts firsts answers were defending the closure and later users defended wanting it opening it is not obvious. I get your point but this is obviously not one of those cases.

@Alex Not an issue here, it didn't go through the reopen queue until your meta

heather

08:44

hmm, kinda disappointed in how few jules verne q/a there are on the site.

TheLethalCarrot

We'd love for you to ask some if you can!

Note most questions should be tagged with the work and not the author so that might be making the search a bit more awkward if you're just looking at the author's tag

heather

oh, i am just looking at the author tag...but i note, e.g., journey-center-earth has only 2 questions and around-the-world-in-80-days only 1.

TheLethalCarrot

I'm not familiar enough with the work but someone did note yesterday it only had a few questions

Though of course the only way to keep a tag going is new questions

I try myself to ask new GoT/ASOIAF Qs myself when I can to keep the tag alive and that's a large popular work

Mithrandir

@heather oh, that should be renamed

TheLethalCarrot

And yet it get's surprisingly few questions

heather

08:49

@Mithrandir yeah, i was kinda questioning that name...btw, does sf&f have longer tag names allowed or something?

b/c i don't know how the heck "hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy" fits, though perhaps i'm just not judging length very well.

TheLethalCarrot

Same length as far as I know

The limit was raised "recently"

Mithrandir

The network got a raise to 35

TheLethalCarrot

But I think that was a year or so ago now

heather

::shrugs:: probably just not judging the length very well then. =)

TheLethalCarrot

H2G2 is apparently 32

So close

heather

08:51

i should probably hang out more over here

i enjoy the literature site a lot, so.

TheLethalCarrot

We're just a different branch of the same idea really

Mithrandir

@heather There were only 2 questions and it had no wiki, so I just edited the four questions about it with journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth.

@TheLethalCarrot Ehhh...

the style of answering is really different here and on Lit

most SFF-style answers wouldn't fit well on Lit

heather

@Mithrandir i have noticed that.

TheLethalCarrot

I mean the core idea of the site as "About books" and "About SFF"

heather

most of the SFF answers are not very in-depth.

TheLethalCarrot

08:53

Not the actual implementation haha

heather

i always learn something new in lit answers; sff answers more confirm what i thought i knew.

though they can be interesting.

TheLethalCarrot

Though I'll admit I haven't spent much time on Lit

heather

oh, cool, there's a tintin tag.

Jenayah

Wow, I just realized not a single post here actually talked about Blake & Mortimer.

That's a shame.

TheLethalCarrot

@Mithrandir Quick reminder cos I know it's being mentioned a lot recently but you're currently at 6 or 7 of the top 15

And actually 6/10

Mithrandir

09:00

I am aware.

TheLethalCarrot

I'd also like to remind you to fix everything on a post, especially if bumping old ones

SQB

@Jenayah the info for comics doesn't even mention Dupuis or Dargaud. Or even the existence of anything but American super-hero comics.

Jenayah

@SQB maybe there should be a separate tag for Franco-Belgian comics, then. Because in the long run, some of them might end up drown in the Marvel-DC mass

TheLethalCarrot

Well the comics wiki isn't great in itseld

Jenayah

By "Franco-Belgian comics", I use the definition of "everything that is neither American or Japanese", which IIRC comes from Franquin

SQB

09:05

@Jenayah bandes-dessinées?

TheLethalCarrot

Is Franco-Belgian a publisher?

Or like regional? Haha

Jenayah

@SQB hell for the yeah o/

@TheLethalCarrot "Franco-Belgian comics" usually refer to the bandes dessinées which have for figureheads Spirou, Lucky Luke, Astérix etc

SQB

2

Q: Is there any Spike and Suzy story that contains neither fantastical nor science fictional elements?

The Flemish comics series Suske en Wiske by Studio Vandersteen is known in the UK as Spike and Suzy and in the USA as Willy and Wanda. Most stories contain science fictional elements (often by way of Professor Barabas and his Teletime Machine) or fantastical elements (such as recurring character...

spike-and-suzy

(That's Bob et Bobette to @Jenayah).

TheLethalCarrot

@Jenayah You're gonna have to explain that in laymans terms haha

SQB

I've now added bandes-dessinees to that (the accent aigu was lost).

TheLethalCarrot

09:11

Can we use the English version?

As it is an English site

Jenayah

@TheLethalCarrot c'mon you've heard of Asterix, surely?

Well the English translatioin would be "comics"

But then again it's not at all the same type of comics as DC/Marvel/etc

SQB

I'll leave the tag info to @Jenayah.

Jenayah

Alright!

Mithrandir

*points to Meta* this may need to go there

SQB

@TheLethalCarrot I thought use of "bandes dessinées" wasn't uncommon in English, either. Well, among fans of the "genre", that is. (I'm not sure if it is a genre. It is something, though.)

@Mithrandir You're right. I propose we first fill out te tag info so people have a better idea of what its use would be, then take it to meta.

If the outcome would be to round out comics, I'd be fine with that, too. Right now though, comics seems to be synonymous with "super heroes".

Mithrandir

09:17

@SQB Although... if it's explicitly asking about non SFF-nal stories, is that actually on topic?

SQB

@Mithrandir I could reword it to "Do all Spike and Suzy stories contain a fantastical or a science fictional element?", which would basically be the same question.

Jenayah

Some of them are definitely SciFi

Astérix, Blake & Mortimer...

Mithrandir

@SQB That might be a good idea

TheLethalCarrot

@SQB Well when I googled it, it took me to the Franco-Belgian comics Wiki page so is Franco-Belgian not a better tag name?

Jenayah

That would have a bit of a chauvinist feel...

SQB

09:22

@Mithrandir done.

I need to dig up Sjeik El Rojenbiet. That one may just contain some feats of Jerommeke's super strength, but no other sff-nal elements.

Jenayah

09:39

Oh, editing the tag info lead me to Le Lombard's website and the second volume of Jack Wolfgang is available, nice.

TheLethalCarrot

To be honest as an English site we should be using [franco-belgian] and not [bandes-dessinees] or of course if that isn't the equivalent version whatever is

The latter can always be a synonym if required

Jenayah

I'm in favor of doing a meta post for that, as Mithrandir suggested.

(though I'd go more with [franco-belgian-comics] which is more informative i think)

SQB

@Jenayah I'll leave that to you, then.

Jenayah

Alrighty

TheLethalCarrot

[franco-belgian-comics] seems best (and matches the Wikipedia article for whatever credit that has)

Jenayah

09:44

Can't help but feel that has a nasty chauvinist feel though.

But the translation does that, I guess.

TheLethalCarrot

Why though? I mean I don't speak another language so I'll be missing something here

Jenayah

It's easier when there's an actual word for the thing, such as mangas.

Which is basically the same debate, but for Japanese comics.

If I'm not mistaken man-ga means "quick drawing" or something.

@TheLethalCarrot Funny how you're the one defending the "nationality" tag when I'm the French one here ahah :)

TheLethalCarrot

@SQB A friendly reminder: You're at 6 of 15 at the moment I believe

Jenayah

I get your point, though.

SQB

@TheLethalCarrot Thanks. I am keeping track.

TheLethalCarrot

09:47

@Jenayah Well I'm defending using the English version because of the nature of the site. I have no idea if it's more correct or chauvinistic or anything haha

@SQB No worries, just people are watching it more nowadays with repeated meta posts and mod messages so just letting you know as soon as I saw :)

SQB

Thanks to @FuzzyBoots, 5/15 now (they edited a question I had edited).

TheLethalCarrot

And I edited a answer on a post you edited, just making sure you don't get a "friendly warning" from a mod

SQB

I don't recall ever receiving such. Just from you and Ed. :)

Jenayah

Well I mean, I know nothing of African/Suramerican/Arabic comics for instance, but I guess if I was from an African/Suramerican/Arabic country, browsed randomly and saw there was a Franco-Belgian tag but not one from my country when I deffo think there should be one as it's then again a different thing, I'd have a "there should be another" feeling

TheLethalCarrot

@SQB Not saying you personally have just letting you know in case you do

Jenayah

09:51

Then again, Franco-Belgian is the genre name. I just don't like the translation, but that's nitpicking.

TheLethalCarrot

Ah okay so more your feeling that Franco-Belgian is "wrong" rather than much else?

SQB

@TheLethalCarrot It seems restrictive to me. There are Dutch comics that should fall in the genre, yet calling them Franco-Belgian seemingly excludes those.

Jenayah

Well it's wrong in the sense that if you have such a tag, you should therefore have a panamean-comics tag, a zimbabwe-comics tag, etc. Buuuut, it's right in the sense that the genre originated with french and Belgian authors and publishers.

Yeah actually @SQB I think you're one of the best persons around here to ask, since you guys produce a good chunk of those too, and you're not in the title

TheLethalCarrot

@Jenayah Well we could have those tags and no ones saying they aren't allowed

Jenayah

Though from what I understand you Dutch are kind of friends with Belgium ^^

TheLethalCarrot

09:57

@SQB I'm merely going by Wikipedia here, if you have a better name for it use it. But a none English tag is not the way to go

Jenayah

@TheLethalCarrot then you have 150+ country-comics tags and it's a mess...

TheLethalCarrot

@Jenayah Well if Franco-Belgian is merely a tag for a region we don't need it at all

From what you was saying I thought it was something more

Jenayah

It is more.

Just that the more originated, and keeps living, in this particular region.

TheLethalCarrot

SO then 150+ country-comics doesn't make much sense in the context

SQB

@TheLethalCarrot It is. It's a form of comics that originated there.

Jenayah

09:59

How can I put that...

Have you ever read an Astérix bande dessinée?

(that's not judging ^ it's to make a point, no problem if you didn't)

TheLethalCarrot

Put it this way, I haven't really read any comics

And if it's in French I certainly haven't haha

Jenayah

(well it's kind of a problem if you didn't, because you definitely hsould :p )

SQB

They're halfway between US-style super-hero comics and graphic novels.

Jenayah

Oh, alright.

TheLethalCarrot

All I'm saying is if it needs a tag it needs to be in English

SQB

10:00

Some more akin to the former, some more to the latter.

Jenayah

I get that and I kinda agree on it.

TheLethalCarrot

We don't allow questions in other languages, we shouldn't allow tags either, it sends the wrong message

Jenayah

I just say the official English translation sucks. =^-^=

TheLethalCarrot

Most translations suck to be honest haha

Jenayah

True that.

Ankit Sharma

10:02

Hello o/

Jenayah

But the fact is, we need this whatever-is-name-is-to-be tag. I mean if we make a difference between manga, manhwa and comics, there should be BDs somewhere in as well.

(from now on I'm referring to bandes dessinnées as BDs 'cause it's shorter and I'm just used to it :p )

Hi!

TheLethalCarrot

Well I'm not against a tag for it, from your explanation it seems fine

You know my objection to it's current name though

Jenayah

Yeah, hence the meta post which is definetely coming today or tonight

TheLethalCarrot

Aye :)

On that note my meta post won't be here today, it's my birthday and I have the afternoon off soo.... :P

Jenayah

Ooooh, happy birthday!

3

And daily floof btw ^

TheLethalCarrot

10:07

Now that's a good car

And thanks :)

We need a poll...

Dogs or Cats?

Star for dogs

7

Star for cats

3

(Mine goes to dogs :P)

Ankit Sharma

@TheLethalCarrot Happy Birthday

2

SQB

@TheLethalCarrot Happy Birthday!

heather

@TheLethalCarrot happy birthday!

SQB

@TheLethalCarrot your username reminds me of "War With the Robots", since the small drones were carrot-shaped, IIRC.

doppelgreener

Happy birthday!! :D

TheLethalCarrot

10:21

Mmmhm haven't read it, it actually comes from my gaming name (which is the same)

Back in my COD days my friends all decided we'd be called TheLethalSomething and I just plumped for Carrot cos it sounded funny and have stuck with it ever since haha

Jenayah

@TheLethalCarrot This makes for some nice PvP logs. "KillerJoe has been thrashed by TheLethalCarrot!"

TheLethalCarrot

Aye that's the idea haha

One of my favourites that I saw in GTA4 online on PS3 was "The SlipperyPickle"

Still makes me chuckle

Jenayah

Or you could go with "a 4-years-old midget"

"You've been slained by a 4-years-old midget!"

TheLethalCarrot

Lol

GlobalWarming was a popular one at one point

"TheLethalCarrot has been killed by GlobalWarming"

Jenayah

ahah

That's GMOs for you

#nothingtodowithGMOs

TheLethalCarrot

10:27

Lol

For the first time in ages I was playing a new game the other day and I was coming top every round with kills so my name finally made sense :P

Jenayah

eheh

Which game, if I may?

TheLethalCarrot

Warface

Jenayah

unknown to the battalion

TheLethalCarrot

I only downloaded it cos it's a free FPS game that seems quite popular at the moment but it was surprisingly fun

And me doing well at it helped of course haha

SQB

(I'm currently 7/15).

Jenayah

10:35

I'll be back to MMORPGs when I buy/build a decent computer. My own is almost dead. But I found a nice 2D, 16-bits indie ORPG on Steam, which my machine is able to run :)

TheLethalCarrot

Oh nice :)

I don't really play MMORPG's

Jenayah

Lots of crafting and grinding, just what I like and need. Also the community is like 10 regular players so nice little community, ahah

TheLethalCarrot

Except for a bit of ESO and some realistic Medieval style ones

Oh that's cool

@SQB My biggest problem with bumps is that they're old posts not the amount of posts with your name next to them but amount with your name next to them are what the mdos look at

I have 693 games on Steam, maybe I should try and play some of them before getting new ones haha

Jenayah

(can I just point out that dogs outvote cats 4-0 right now, which is a sign of quality thinking)

TheLethalCarrot

That means we have a good community then :)

Jenayah

10:39

Yup :)

Now to post the cats/dogs poll on Pets.SE and start a civil war there :)

TheLethalCarrot

Lol, that'd be fun

@TheLethalCarrot Plus 15 or so on my wishlist, games on other platforms and new ones not yet released that I want haha

Jenayah

Mostly FPS/TPS then?

TheLethalCarrot

They're usually what I tend tom play regularly yeah, my current games I'm playing are: CSGO, Fortnite, PUBG, Warface, Arms 3, AC:O, ESO and Rocket League

Might be missing some

Though I generally play one for a few weeks (only play once or twice a week anyway) and then switch to a different one

Jenayah

ok!

TheLethalCarrot

When I was at uni I played a lot of Life is Feudal an MMORPG with 2 of my friends

Although that game seems to have gone downhill massively since I last played it from looking at it's reviews

Jenayah

10:53

The quick Google search I did show something that looks usual but nice

I mean you can't do that much new things in RPGs nowadays I guess

TheLethalCarrot

Aye, it was a fun game to play... with friends

It appears abandoned now

Jenayah

Though Legrand Legacy has some interesting stuff and is definitely on my buy list next time it's on sale!

TheLethalCarrot

I'm talking about Life is Feudal: Your Own too, there appears to be Life is Feudal by the same company that might not be abandoned

@Jenayah That a console port to PC?

Jenayah

Two versions of the same game?

TheLethalCarrot

Similar game I think, haven't really looked into it

Jenayah

10:57

@TheLethalCarrot not that I know of, it came out like this year I think. Let me check

TheLethalCarrot

Release date this year but the graphics look outdated and one of the images on Steam has PlayStation button icons

Jenayah

Nevermind, it's cross-platforms indeed, though I don't think it's an actual port like they massively did with some PSP games for instance

I wouldn't say outdated, rather "we're indie so it's not Naughty Dog quality"

TheLethalCarrot

True, outdated was probably not the right word though even for the style they don't look that up to date

Jenayah

I played the demo and it was entertaining

Then again, I'm shit at convincing other that stuff I like is actually good ^^

TheLethalCarrot

Well we all have individual tastes haha

Jenayah

11:00

Yup!

TheLethalCarrot

I generally play whatever is entertaining to me at the time no matter the genre and whatnot

I played a lot of Overwatch a while back but haven't played in months and played Destiny 2 for about 2 months

I don't really have anyone to play with nowadays though so I tend to stay away from team games and the like

Well games where playing with friends makes it more fun I mean

Jenayah

Talking about Overwatch, musical interlude:

OVERWATCH SONG - Get The Gang Back by Miracle Of Sound (Epic Rock)

►

I have the opposite, ahah. Friends to play with but my computer won't follow

TheLethalCarrot

If I remember I'll listen later, I still can't be bothered to fix my sound at work haha

Lol

I actually spent quite a bit on my PC 4 or 5 years back now

Jenayah

Built it or bought it?

TheLethalCarrot

Built

Jenayah

11:05

Neato

TheLethalCarrot

It's my second build after I ruined the CPU on my first by bending a pin and getting thermal paste on the pins somehow haha

(Was changing the mobo on that at the time I think)

Still don't know how I managed it

Jenayah

I'm laughing but that's probably something I might be able to do too, ahah

TheLethalCarrot

Oh I laugh now

I didn't when it happened though of course haha

Jenayah

^^

TheLethalCarrot

Meant I forced myself to get a pretty decent setup though so worked out quite well in the end

Jenayah

11:09

Built ones are usually better yeah

I'm probably going to screw up my first though, but hey, why do we fall, right?

TheLethalCarrot

Yeah exactly, my first was a pre built one that I customised from a set list of options but then bought better stuff for later on as and when I got the money

So I suppose I half built it haha

Edlothiad

I've Got No Strings on Me- Avengers Age of Ultron

►

@Jenayah I just want to say you have this incredibly pure innocence about you and you're a wonderful addition to the community. I hope you stick around and get a bit more active on site as well as in chat! You seem very down to earth and friendly. Keep at 'em!

5

I am a little late, but can I please ask everyone in here to just relax on bumping old posts, currently out of the top 21 posts only 1 is actually a new posts. We're drowning out new content and not allowing them to receive the attention they deserve. Especially new answers, they don't have their own tab.

Jenayah

@Edlothiad why thank you :) blushes

Edlothiad

And finally before I'm forced to depart again, can I ask what use the franco-belgian comic tag brings that the comics doesn't?

Jenayah

Roughly put, it would help distinguishing Marvel/DC stuff from the rest.

Think of mangas.

Edlothiad

11:20

@Jenayah Well I've had plenty of time to "think and ponder" and in that time I was allowed to read the transcript and you're the only person in the past 24 hours who consistently kept a cool head and stayed friendly to everyone and I felt it should be commended!

Jenayah

Mangas and manhwas are basically comics

Edlothiad

But mangas are largely different to comics, I'm not really seeing the similarity there

(I don't know anything about mangas except they're black and white, have lots of lines to accent things and read right to left)

Rand al'Thor

@TheLethalCarrot You might be overthinking this one :-) For one thing, it'd be very hard to enforce any kind of rule about voting or not voting in certain ways just because a meta is open. And even if we could, do we need any policy on this - is there a major problem with people voting 'badly' (whatever that may mean) on questions with an open meta about them?

Most importantly, the answer would vary on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes people make a meta calling for close/reopen votes on something that's a very obvious case, and we don't even need to wait for lots of meta votes and answers to come in. Sometimes close/reopen votes on main are as good a way for the community to express their opinion as up/down votes on meta. Sometimes a post really does need people to stop pushing it back and forth, and those can be locked by a mod.

2

Jenayah

Well, just because Franco-Belgian comics are in color and don't feature too much of said lines, doesn't mean they tackle the same things. It's kind of a spirit, both in what's written and the behind-the-scenes.

Edlothiad

But comics aren't just Marvel and DC

Jenayah

11:23

Sure thing !

Edlothiad

They extend to Donald duck etc, which seems rather identical in style to FBComics

Rand al'Thor

@Edlothiad I know essentially zero about comics, but don't we already have some subtags there? Like marvel-comics and dc-comics. Or is the tag you're talking about just based on country/language? (you didn't make it a clicky-link :-) )

Edlothiad

(I forget the french name so I'm sticking with the name you hate, sorry)

@Randal'Thor We nuked them. Big Edit Even with Captain Edge

doppelgreener

@Randal'Thor bandes-dessinees

TheLethalCarrot

@Randal'Thor The main problem I see is people using votes and having the question in the wrong state when the consensus is reached and then not being able to change the state appropriately and even a close/RO war... which happens all too often

Edlothiad

11:24

"problem" "annoyance"

Rand al'Thor

@Edlothiad No no, we just changed the direction of synonymisation so that marvel-comics maps to marvel rather than vice versa.

Edlothiad

Same thing

They can't be typed out. One has to use marvel and comics to get the same effect

@TheLethalCarrot Where's the fun in a runaway winner, eh?

doppelgreener

It sounds like it's a genre somehow, I'd be inclined to tag both with that tag and comics

Rand al'Thor

We actually had an ancient meta which was never status-completed until the Big Edit Event:

Jenayah

I don't want to just say "well, American comics have this 'hey let's draw this without any kind of continued organization between the panels shapes' or something", especially since I've probably read more Franco-Belgian stuff than American ones :) (save for superhero comics)

Rand al'Thor

11:26

9

Q: Should the marvel/DC-comics tag be changed to just marvel/DC?

Marvel has long ago moved past only supplying comics for its audience, and now boasts a thriving film and TV section as well. The same can be said about DC. I think that by changing the tag to just, for instance, marvel we'd clear up a lot of tag issues (non-comic Marvel questions tagged with ma...

discussion status-completed tags

Edlothiad

@Randal'Thor I'm aware

I haven't read any BD comics in a long time, so I'm unaware of the actual differences, but I don't see what bandes-dessinees would give us that comics doesn't

Rand al'Thor

@doppelgreener Tag wiki says it's a subgenre, and we do have tags for other subgenres. But how much is it really a subgenre rather than just comics in a different culture?

Edlothiad

Unless say, you had reason to make it a franchise tag, like marvel or t-l

Rand al'Thor

I guess that's what you all are already discussing and I'm just slow :-)

TheLethalCarrot

@Randal'Thor Two things here, I mentioned this would be about the general case ignoring the "obvious cases". And I forgot the second thing... :P

Edlothiad

11:28

@Randal'Thor sword-and-sorcery

doppelgreener

@Randal'Thor Not sure. :/

Edlothiad

hard-sci-fi soft-sci-fi

doppelgreener

And yeah that's what we're discussing

Edlothiad

Those three off the top of my head, I believe there are more. But those are story-id exclusives (I know, they still are)

Rand al'Thor

@TheLethalCarrot If there's consensus on meta for a particular state (closed/open), then the meta voters should be able to vote to close/reopen accordingly. If there aren't enough voters somehow, a mod can hammer it.

The Masked Rebel

11:29

@doppelgreener o/

Edlothiad

Lots of people here to talk about tags, lovely jubbly

doppelgreener

I mean things like manga and manhwa are manifestly different to American comics because of being in a different culture — though they're still comics

TheLethalCarrot

@Randal'Thor Sure but you get the point I was making

doppelgreener

@TheMaskedRebel o/

The Masked Rebel

how are you doing

TheLethalCarrot

11:30

Whatever is decided on the tag being around or not, it should be English

I'm on half day today anyway so ping me if you want me ;P

doppelgreener

Doing great. You?

Edlothiad

@SQB Maybe people just have preferences

Rand al'Thor

@TheLethalCarrot Oh, happy birthday btw! :-D

The Masked Rebel

Very well, thank you

Edlothiad

(Jenayah if it's not clear that I'm replying to you because I'm not pinging you just say, I don't ping much because it annoys me.

TheLethalCarrot

11:31

@Randal'Thor Thanks :)

The Masked Rebel

I'm moving to the gamedev chat.

This theme is too dark

* Runs from The dark side of SE*

Rand al'Thor

@TheLethalCarrot Honestly I don't think this is really worth a meta. But if you make one and I have time, I'll try to write up an answer based on what I said here.

Jenayah

@doppelgreener this! This is kind of how I would have wanted to phrase it :) I get that Franco-Belgian culture is a bit closer to American culture than Asian one is, but it's still the same debate. Unless we want to establish a tag distinction by radius distance in which case we're screwed :)

TheLethalCarrot

@Randal'Thor Well I did say that yesterday that it may not be worth one... if I do write one up properly I'd have wiki answers for each approach I've thought of though with pros and cons to be edited in by everyone or something along those lines

Jenayah

@Edlothiad don't worry, I'm just taking time multitasking the chat reading with all those posts and eating my chili con carne sin chili :p

Edlothiad

11:36

The style of answers is incredibly different. I won't give my opinions on literature, but they prefer to use analytical techniques to reach their own conclusions based on supporting evidence from the texts, and the questions on the site reflect that kind of analysis.

On SFF we prefer what users call "WoG" answers. Effectively they answer the question by a statement made by the creator of the work in one of his works, this can take various forms. Answers sometimes to do some extent use analytical techniques, but most users don't have the "necessary skills" to carry out an extensive analysis.

Rand al'Thor

@TheLethalCarrot Ehhh ... that's usually not a good approach for meta questions. The part about everyone editing in pros/cons does make it better than what I've seen before (just posting short YES / NO answers to be voted on) ... but if someone's going to edit in their thoughts on pros and cons, they might as well submit their own answer instead.

Edlothiad

Well that was a lot of words...

@Randal'Thor And countering points may see a con as a pro and vice versa.

Mithrandir

@TheLethalCarrot Happy birthday!

SQB

@Edlothiad certainly a lot for a less-in-depth stack such as ourselves.

Rand al'Thor

@Edlothiad In-depth in a different way, one might say. There are some incredibly detailed answers here on SFF, but a fair number of them could be made just by searching the web or some database and copying a bunch of quotes.

I think it's much easier here than on Lit to answer questions about things one hasn't actually read.

Edlothiad

11:39

@Jenayah I've not been very clear I don't think. So I'll try and put it on a silver platter (who doesn't like silver platters). Is the plan to tag ever BD comic question with bd-comics? (That's not currently how we go about with most of our media tags, actually it's not how we treat any of them) If yes, does it become a franchise tag as opposed to a media tag?

@Randal'Thor Again, literary analysis vs WoG. Some users prefer one, others prefer another, and some dark, twisted users like to mix the two...

doppelgreener

In general rather than trying to summarise the various positions, present your own and let people with those positions present theirs. They'll do it much better than we can as the owner.

Rand al'Thor

@Edlothiad Sure. Different skills required in each case, and some very knowledgeable users might prefer either one. But in a lot of cases it doesn't require subject knowledge to find WoG quotes.

Edlothiad

Nor did I say it did.

Rand al'Thor

@Edlothiad I don't like silver platters :-P

Edlothiad

@Randal'Thor "I don't like things the masses like" ;= )

Oh god that face is broken, I'll leave it though

Jenayah

11:43

@Edlothiad it may be a translation thing on my end, but BD is not a franchise, I reckon. The way I see it, a franchise is basically a brand, which is not the case for BD. I'm not sure what you mean by "media", but if it's along the line of "a particular form of conveying info/message/entertainment in a certain way" then yeah it would be a media.

Edlothiad

Imperfection is beauty

doppelgreener

Rather in trying to present a position we don't agree with we'll be likely to present it poorly, missing major pieces of information and reasoning. That's a disservice to those who may otherwise support that position but then have to find ways to also point out how the weak version of their position presented previously was bad.

Edlothiad

@Jenayah I'm aware it's not a franchise, unlike Carrot I have read and am aware of BD. I mean how you want to use it as a tag on the site.

So we have "sets" of tags. 90% of non-story id questions follow the simple order of "franchise-tags -> work-tag -> extra-tags

Those are most of our tags, they fit in those categories

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah Media tags are things like movie, books, tv. Did you mean subgenre, @Edlothiad?

Edlothiad

Things like meta tags, author tags etc are part of extra tags.

Jenayah

11:45

Well say if someone has an Astérix question, I think it should be tagged with the BD tag (whatever the final name would be), while that not impeding using the usual comics as well

Edlothiad

then we have media tags such as rand just said, and comics. Which is where bd seems to fall.

However we mostly use those tags for story-id. Some users also use them to distinguish between different adaptations and that is what policy says to use them for, but there's debate there.

Jenayah

I see that more as a subclass/superclass thing yeah

Edlothiad

We also have sub-genre tags, such as sword-and-sorcery or hard-sci-fi which are 99% of the time only seen on story-id questions. And are a "lesser" tag to the media tags.

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah We don't normally use genre tags though, except on ID questions. A question about Doctor Who doesn't need to be tagged soft-sci-fi, for instance - it's enough to tag it with the franchise tag.

Edlothiad

So depending on where you see this tag fitting in would change it's usage, and that's what I'm trying to establish.

And the above demonstrates that one can spend far to much time with a site's tags :)

Jenayah

11:49

@Edlothiad ahah but that's the whole internet :)

Alex

@Randal'Thor What if the Meta voters are disproportionately < 3,000 reputation users? In this case, I opened the Meta discussion, I posted 4 answers thereto, and probably wrote the most comments, but I don't have a vote for close/reopen.

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Yep, that would be an exception to what I said :-)

@Edlothiad Stray not too far into the depths of the SFF tagging system. Bolder souls have gone before you, and returned they not.

Jenayah

I would also say this would bring attention to the genre, because even if SFF.SE is not a recommendation site, it's always good to be able to learn about new things and discover stuff. I mean if Americans never hear about Blake & Mortimer because the big publishers think that won't sell enough issues, they're missing quite a thing!

Edlothiad

@Randal'Thor As you've mentioned many a time, yet someone needs to make sense of the spiders nest.

Zaphod

8

Q: Children's Book Involving Witches, Flying Cars, and a Mysterious man who sacrifices himself for the protagonist

I wrote about this on the TVTropes YKTS, but never got any bites. I read it as a little child, mid 1980s or so. It was a book in our house in Ashland, KY. It was a short book, more a short story than anything else. It had sketchy pen and ink drawings in it. The main character was a little boy who...

story-identification childrens-novel

Edlothiad

11:54

@Jenayah While this is not a bad idea, this would require a revamp of the entire tagging system based on how we use genre tags. Hence why I proposed you use BD as a faux franchise tag. It goes on all the questions but as a franchise tag (i.e. grouping works) as opposed to a genre tag.

Jenayah

Or there could probably be questions about how the genre tackles Sci-Fi - I mean, I know I draw a lot of comparisons with American comics, but not everyone goes in there guns blazing! :p

Edlothiad

@Jenayah pew pew

Jenayah

@Edlothiad Ok I think I understand what you meant by franchise now. It's a bit clearer.

However the bd-comics tag is even worse than the french-belgian-comics one as it litterally translates to comics-comics. But that's nitpicking again :p

Edlothiad

bd-comics is just what i'm calling it unofficially haha!

FuzzyBoots

@SQB I'm not entirely certain where I came into this... :-P 5 out of 15 whats?

Jenayah

11:58

I get it, it's just funny :)

@Edlothiad reminds me of this one: scifi.stackexchange.com/q/127161/98028

SQB

@FuzzyBoots active questions on the front page.

FuzzyBoots

Ah!

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The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…