The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

3:02 PM

@Alex no offense but I don't think extra hard wrt that matter ahah :D At the moment, I'm rather doing different things and then fetching the confirmation (or the un-confirmation)

Alex

@Jenayah Well I'm glad I'm providing you with background noise.

Jenayah

@Alex on the matter of noise, I'm afraid whatever pingy notif sound you can throw at me is currently overriden by Eagles... :)

Alex

@Jenayah Nah, that just means I'm not pinging you enough. One long ongoing ping sound should certainly get your attention.

Jenayah

@Alex two answers: 1/ I can mute the chat and/or the tab if need be :p 2/ tbh I notice your message with the asterisk mark

Alex

@Jenayah True. It's cool that when I originally said "noise" I wasn't even referring to the notification sound, but once you mentioned it I just continued the conversation under that assumption since it fit well.

Jenayah

3:11 PM

@Alex yeah I understood you meant "thinking noise", but indeed the pingy sound fitted too :)

Alex

@Jenayah Ah, now you have outsmarted me and I am the fool for not knowing that you knew that I knew that your line wasn't what I meant.

Jenayah

@Alex The tide is turning, ~~Sylvester~~ Alex :p

Alex

@Jenayah I guess I'll have to resign myself to a small piece of cake after all.

Jenayah

@Alex If that's any consolation, the virtual nature of the cake won't make your belly feel less full than with a normal-sized one.

Alex

@Jenayah But my intellect will feel less full, knowing that it is a punishment for being bested in a contest of wits.

Jenayah

3:20 PM

@Alex if that's any consolation, you have 214 days to make up for it, get your normal-sized piece back and who knows, maybe even earn a bigger one :)

Alex

@Jenayah Who knows if I'll still be here by then? I just need to get to 3,000 so I can vote to reopen all the duplicate questions. Then my purpose has been served.

Jenayah

@Alex you do whatever you want to do but you could still provide good answers to future HP questions :) (and reversely)

Alex

@Jenayah Indeed, that's how I came here even before knowing about duplicate issues.

Jenayah

@Alex well don't stop Q/Aing about HP after 3k then ;D

(well as said above you do whatever you wanna do but still, if you have a quality post, the site can use it eh)

Edlothiad

@Alex That sounds like a great plan! Then I can finally reach my goal of being the top RO queue voter on the site and retire in peace. After voting to leave them closed, of course.

Alex

3:29 PM

@Edlothiad Happy to be of service.

Rand al'Thor

3:45 PM

@Lhurgoyf What kind of fantasy novels would you like? I've got all sorts of recommendations in different styles and subgenres.

@Edlothiad @TheLethalCarrot huh?

TheLethalCarrot

Did I put to much trust in the review comment?

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Jon Ericson said so on SFF meta, I think. (Although I don't agree with using it only in that way either.)

@Alex ALL the duplicate questions?

Alex

@Randal'Thor T'was a joke with a kernel of truth to it.

Rand al'Thor

@TheLethalCarrot The answer is about a book. Someone edited in an image from a film.

TheLethalCarrot

Right... still adds a nice visual

Rand al'Thor

3:49 PM

But a largely irrelevant one.

I added the original illustration from the book (although would be grateful if anyone could find a higher-quality version of that).

TheLethalCarrot

Seemed fine to me but meh

Your other images are fine too of course

Edlothiad

Seemed like a nice visual, didn’t do any harm, was in line with the answer.

Rand al'Thor

4:08 PM

@Edlothiad Imagine if you posted a nice book-based aSoIaF answer and then someone edited in a big image of a related scene in that alt-universe fanfiction ;-)

Edlothiad

Good thing that isn’t the case here, although, even then, I’d expect the reviewers most likely approve it, if they got there before me.

Jenayah

4:36 PM

poke @Randal'Thor saw your comment afterwards and edited, but no need to pollute the comment thread above

FWIW I retracted my vote

Rand al'Thor

Ah OK, deleted my last comment :-)

Jenayah

ok :)

Rand al'Thor

FWIW, I think the accepted answer on the older question isn't really conclusive. DVK's answer is better.

Alex

5:32 PM

@Jenayah Here's a current example of an answer that is clearly an answer, but it's clearly wrong because the answerer mixed up two different characters:

-1

A: The core of Voldemort's wand came from Fawkes, so how could he successfully use a Killing Curse against Fawkes?

First counterpoint: Was it even Voldemort that cast the curse which killed Fawkes? To my recollection, Fawkes was killed by one of the Death Eaters chasing Hagrid/Harry, and it was only after Fawkes was recognized by them that Voldemort knew which 'Harry' was actually Harry, and came to him. Se...

As opposed to the below answer by the same user, which might be correct but doesn't address the question:

0

A: Are Hogwarts' house-elves obligated to obey commands from students?

Even if they are bound to obey the students, in this specific case, I would argue that the 'or something' part of the command acts as a sort of 'escape clause', allowing the elf to do something other that immediately go to sleep [and I imagine it would simply continue on with its normal chores at...

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Heh, that answer reminds me of my famous "Pedant of the Pedant" answer :-)

Jul 26 at 8:04, by Rand al'Thor

40

A: What did Aragorn do with his sword between the battles of Pelennor Fields and Morannon?

He was speaking figuratively. Obviously he didn't plan to keep his sword actually unsheathed, for reasons of safety on several different levels, for the many days it would obviously take until he reached the last battle. I've wondered about this exact same thing (hey, I'm a pedant too!) and sat...

Jenayah

@Alex I'd qualify that one as a not an answer, since both it's wrongness and what it points out to ("your argument is invalid because that was Malfoy's wand"... Yeah, but we're talking about the times he was using his own) make it a non-answer in my eyes

As for the other, I commented, won't copy-paste here, I'm lazy :)

Basically what's ok in fanfiction might not be ok in Canon (surprise surprise)

Alex

@Jenayah I was going at a slightly different angle.

The answer addresses the specific words that were said in the example but it doesn't actually address the question of whether elves have to obey student commands.

Jenayah

NaA then

It's been transferred anyway

Rand al'Thor

I already converted it to a comment ;-)

Jenayah

5:47 PM

@Randal'Thor guess who's been FGITW'd :p blows on her smoking gun

Alex

@Randal'Thor I'm a professional pedant:

TheLethalCarrot had immediately rejected the proposal as absurd given the two are in no way identical. Did you seem my follow-up comments there? (And not to be pedantic, but my comment there got one upvote so perhaps one other person thought that it logically follows?) — Alex Jul 17 at 6:01

Rand al'Thor

@Alex How much do they pay you?

To match pedantry with pedantry, you're not a professional if you're not getting paid for it.

Jenayah

@Alex great now there are two of them...

Alex

@Randal'Thor I get paid for the pedantry, but then it has to get canceled by getting not paid for using Stack Exchange. (Or maybe that's only for moderators.)

yesterday, by Rand al'Thor

@TheLethalCarrot I can give you one piece of advice: don't become an SE moderator. 'Cos we don't get paid for this sh*t.

@Jenayah That wasn't entirely the answerer's fault. The question didn't specify the occasion it was referring to, and offered no citation.

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Unless you're actually paying money to Stack Exchange, that doesn't cancel.

Alex

6:01 PM

@Randal'Thor Yeah, but then it wouldn't parallel your comment. I guess poetic license trumps pedantry after all.

Rand al'Thor

As a poet, I will grudgingly accept that sometimes poetic licence trumps pedantry :-)

Jenayah

@Alex still kind of torn. Yes, the OP might have been wrong (even if in this situation, it's the answerer who is), but the question's title clearly asks for Voldemort's wand, not Lucius'.

Should right answers to mistaken questions be ok?

Ahah this sounds like one to ask on Philosophy

Alex

@Jenayah It would be a good answer if it successfully showed that the premise of the question was mistaken. Since it is actually the answerer who was mistaken, it's a bad answer, but an answer nonetheless.

In my opinion.

@Alex That post's gotta be some kind of record. 27 downvotes and no upvotes!

@Alex But if the question had been clearer, then it might not be an answer because then it would be clearly addressing something other than what the question asked.

Jenayah

@Alex meh, meta votes records don't qualify for the same kind of records as the main site's

Alex

@Jenayah I'd say it's even better. On Meta you don't need to write anything good to get an upvote. Youjust need one person to agree with you.

And I couldn't get one single person to agree with me.

Jenayah

6:09 PM

@Alex uuuh... What exactly is your definition of "better" here?

Alex

@Jenayah More of a record.

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Wow, even this question got one upvote from someone.

Jenayah

@Alex Also tbh I don't even see the premise of why someone would be okay with that suggestion

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Please don't try to set that record. It's ... not a good record to have.

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor plot twist: one of the moderators was actually the tooth fairy, and upvote the question because well, it was then true that the tooth fairy deleted comments.

Alex

6:15 PM

@Jenayah If they disagree with Emerson.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds

@Randal'Thor You think if I was trying to set the record it would have only gotten 27 downvotes?

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah It gave me an interesting new way to describe the moderator job.

Janitor, policeman, exception handler, tooth fairy, ...

@Alex It's just a little disturbing how pleased you seem to be about this 'record'.

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor you should ask the good people of Workplace.SE about how to phrase that into a neat, unique résumé.

Alex

@Randal'Thor What can I do, it's my only way of dealing with the utter and complete rejection.

Jenayah

@Alex uuuh... Didn't you reject this very idea in your question?

Oh, right, disagreeing with Emerson ;D

Alex

@Jenayah I did reject it, but on its own merits. I rejected it because I disagreed with the premise. But the point of the post was that if you do accept the premise then you should accept the suggestion, or go back and reject the premise.

Loong

6:22 PM

@Jenayah metaphysical dental practitioner?

Jenayah

@Loong wellyou can hire anyone as long as you've got good dental

(kudos to whoever catches that reference)

Alex

One could perhaps even argue that it is beneficial to leave bad answers because it shows future readers what the answer is not, perhaps preventing others from posting the same incorrect answers.

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Yep.

Jenayah

@Alex there's a Help page on "How to Answer" for that

scifi.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer

Alex

@Jenayah That helps you construct an answer in general. It doesn't tell you what's not the answer in a specific case.

Jenayah

6:27 PM

You could include some "bad answers" examples there, but leaving them around on the site is wrong for two reasons

1/ goes against quality. No need to explain that further, I think

2/ how do we decide which ones to leave?

Rand al'Thor

We don't delete answers which are merely 'bad' or 'wrong'.

Downvotes are enough to judge their quality.

Alex

@Jenayah (again this is my opinion, not necessarily policy) I would say that it's not such a harm to the quality if it's at the bottom of the page with a bunch of downvotes. The method to decide would be are they actually attempts to address the question.

Which, by the way, is what the Not-An-Aanswer flag says.

Jenayah

Ok then hold your horses, bad phrasing on my part

2 mins ago, by Jenayah

You could include some "bad answers" examples there, but leaving them around on the site is wrong for two reasons

Those bad answers I was referring to are the NaAs, not "wrong" or "mislead" ones

Rand al'Thor

Oh right. We definitely delete NaAs.

Alex

@Jenayah Ah, have we misunderstood each other again?

Rand al'Thor

6:30 PM

But wrong answers with a lot of downvotes can actually be useful.

Jenayah

@Alex such is our destiny, it seems.

@Randal'Thor agreed, but they should have a companion comment

Rand al'Thor

A Companion? Fine, let's ask Donna Noble.

Jenayah

Which is not always the case, but we could think of a template comment and post it on said answers (for future readers) when we stumble across one

Rand al'Thor

</nerd_joke>

@Jenayah There shouldn't be any template comment for wrong answers. The reason why they're wrong will be different in each case.

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor of course! but the premise would be the same, something as "for future readers, this is considered a 'bad' answer because XYZ"

Example for what I was saying: the one below is not wrong (it's an answer to the question, whether the order at stake is relevant or not, I don't know), but it's got several downvotes without explanation. You could add something like "FYI future readers, this is considered bad because 1/awful formatting 2/no explanation as to why it's this order"

-6

A: What is the correct reading order for Stephen King's 'Dark Tower' series (updated)?

My two cents: The Gunslinger Everything's Eventual (For the purpose of Dark Tower, only read "Little Sisters of Eluria") The Drawing of the Three Eyes of the Dragon The Stand The Wastelands The Talisman Wizard and Glass The Wind Through the Keyhole Salem's Lot Wolves of the Calla Black House Song...

Well, this very example is a bit wrong in the sense that there's a Is this based on anything other than your own opinion? comment on a similar answer right above, but that's not always the case.

On the other hand, I can hear some users growling at those proposed comments adding noise and visual blight to the site, which is not entirely wrong.

Um. Should we take this to Meta?

Alex

6:45 PM

@Jenayah Go for it.

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah Take what, exactly?

Alex

The last 200 comments.

Rand al'Thor

If you're just proposing "add a comment to explain why an answer's wrong", well, it's always nice to leave constructive feedback.

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor something along the lines of "should we leave a comment explaining why an answer is bad if it's got no comments so far, for the sake of future readers?"

Rand al'Thor

Not required, of course - anyone proposing mandatory comments to accompany downvotes is always shot down in flames - but it's much more useful for the site in general.

Jenayah

6:48 PM

Duh, no, certainly not required.

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah Go ahead, if you like, but I'd expect answers along the lines of "duh, yes" :-)

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor well that's kind of what I thought after reading your message:

2 mins ago, by Rand al'Thor

If you're just proposing "add a comment to explain why an answer's wrong", well, it's always nice to leave constructive feedback.

Zaphod

7:12 PM

6

Q: YA book about teen Atlantian in Egypt

The plot is (I believe) that a boy is on vacation with his parents in Egypt. The book is set around the time of the flooding of the Aswan Dam. The boy meets this other kid (while scuba diving?) and they become friends. The story emerges that he is actually descended from survivors of Atlantis. T...

Alex

0

Q: Professor Flitwick appearance

In Harry Potter for Kinect Year 1, I get why it had Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore because Richard Harris had passed away, but why in the world is the young Flitwick there? It should be the older Flitwick.

harry-potter

Am I misunderstanding this question? Isn't it asking why the character's appearance in the videogame doesn't match its appearance in the corresponding movie?

Jenayah

@Alex eh, I kind of read it this way too tbh

Rand al'Thor

I didn't understand that question tbh.

Jenayah

Though wiki says the videogame came out in ~2007 so I think the answer is along the lines of "people were used to Flitwick's appearance in the latest movies, so we kept that one and did not model the character basing ourselves on the first movie"

Alex

It sounded to me that he was asking that given the appearance is different between the movies, why didn't the videogame appearance match the movie appearance for that year?

In which case it is totally not a duplicate; in fact it presupposes the other question.

Jenayah

7:23 PM

@Alex agreed

On a side note, there's another Alex who seems determined to analyze everything in Shrek ahah :)

Alex

@Jenayah I tried my best to pick a unique username.

Jenayah

@Alex yeah, I can imagine the hours it took you to make up that unique username of yours :)

Alex

@Jenayah It took a while to decide between Alex and Alѐx.

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah At least that Alex has a surname in their username too.

It's more confusing when two people have identical usernames.

32

Q: There are at least three Kevins on Puzzling. I plan to trap them in my labyrinth

Note: please do not edit the title! It originates in a challenge in Stack Overflow chat. I have rounded up all ten (currently) of the Puzzling SE users named Kevin and trapped them in my labyrinth. The only way out is across a narrow bridge which can bear the weight of at most two Kevins at a ti...

strategy story

Jenayah

@Alex I mean... you do whatever you want with your life, but seriously... Alex definitely sounded cooler than Alex.

Alex

7:31 PM

On another Stack Exchange site where I am active, the third highest user is also just "Alex". When I first started there, it probably looked like I was trying to "ride on his coattails".

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor yeah, no. That sounds like those oral examinations I had every week two years ago. I'm out.

Alex

@Jenayah Well unfortunately I just made that up now. I didn't think of it at the time.

Jenayah

@Alex your username should then have been Alex (no, not that one) or Alex (the other one)

Rand al'Thor

Proper Alex and Other Alex.

(anyone get that reference?)

Alex

@Jenayah I don't think I realized until after I created.

Jenayah

7:37 PM

@Alex well you can still change it eheh

Alex

@Jenayah But then I might as well change it to Bob.

Or Jenayah.

Rand al'Thor

What do you call a man floating in the water?
Bob.

What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?
Cliff.

What do you call a man with a car on his head?
Jack.

What do you call a man reversing dupe-closures?
Alex.

Jenayah

@Alex now I'm half-tempted to join Mi Yodeya with the username Jenayah (the first and right one)

Alex

@Randal'Thor Trying to reverse closures. I still have 883 reputation to go until I get a vote.

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor what's the seagull about? I get the other two puns but not this one

Alex

7:43 PM

@Jenayah Mi Yodeya could use some new blood.

Jenayah

@Alex I don't think I could be of any quality help on Mi Yodeya...

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Posting in the HP tag, that won't take you long :-P

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor uh, yeah. Cliff as the mountain thingy I know, but there are other places seagulls pack

Rand al'Thor

Other places that are also men's names?

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor well I mean Bob and Jack kind of seem like the "unique" answer for both sides, but Cliff doesn't...

Alex

7:49 PM

@Jenayah There are actually a few users there who only get involved in Meta, editing, voting, and other "non-content" ways. Some ask an occasional question or give an answer when there's something external involved which they might know more about than "experts on Judaism".

And there's a story-identification tag.

Rand al'Thor

There is? Interesting. adds Mi Yodeya to the list of sites which have no problem with ID questions

Alex

@Randal'Thor But it's only for stories relating to Judaism. And many of them get closed as off-topic.

Jenayah

8:08 PM

@Alex FWIW, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing "non-content" activity on a site where I don't understand 30-40% of the words being used, even if it's to fix English grammar errors on the ones I do understand

Alex

@Jenayah Well I'll have to have a word with some people there for not following policy. The official policy is to not use words or phrases that are not understandable to someone who knows English.

(To whatever extent possible.)

And I might be one of the culprits.

Jenayah

@Alex I'm not sure I understand. Does that mean every question there is on Mi Yodeya is supposed to be understandable by someone who "only" knows English, and not the Jewish "technical" terms which might very well be relevant to the situation?

Alex

@Jenayah Ideally, yes. Sometimes it's simply impossible, as there just might not be English equivalents, but to whatever extent possible we encourage regular language (and linking to explanations of terms in the impossible cases).

Jenayah

Don't get me wrong, said terms are part of the English language, but if I open a random Mi Yodeya question I think most of the hillbillies out there wouldn't understand anything else that the "thanks! :) " at the bottom

Rand al'Thor

^

Alex

8:17 PM

@Jenayah Not to bother you, but is there a particular example?

Because that's not how it's supposed to be (to an extent).

Jenayah

@Alex that sounds like Q/Aing on Mi Yodeya is even harder than anywhere else (applies for other religious sites, too, I guess)

Rand al'Thor

Nearly every time I've visited Mi Yodeya from HNQ, the question has been full of jargon I can't make head or tail of.

Alex

@Randal'Thor Perhaps I really have to speak to some people.

Jenayah

@Alex I don't have one right off the hat but I think I can easily go and fetch one

(not a "new user who doesn't know the policy" one, I mean)

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Monica has mentioned that policy to me as well, and I was equally surprised then ;-)

Alex

8:23 PM

Part of it might be that we're less strict in questions than answers.

Rand al'Thor

I suppose that makes sense.

Jenayah

Ok, got one.

23

Q: Avot keeping Mitzvot

How are we to understand the tradition that the patriarchs kept all of the mitzvot in the Torah (see for example the last mishna in Kidushin, Rashi Bereshit 32:5, etc.) in light of the many obvious logical contradictions that this would seem to imply? For examples of such logical contradictions ...

history parshanut-torah-comment mitzvah avot-patriarch-fathers

Alex

That is to say that if you're asking a high-level question it will almost by definition be jargony, so we assume that it's targeting those who know the jargon.

Jenayah

If I'm being honest I picked that one because I don't even understand the title.

Alex

But ifyou're answering a question and the asker might not know the termionolgy then there's no excuse.

Jenayah

8:24 PM

(dunno if it's a HQ post)

> How are we to understand the tradition that the patriarchs kept all of the mitzvot in the Torah (see for example the last mishna in Kidushin, Rashi Bereshit 32:5, etc.) in light of the many obvious logical contradictions that this would seem to imply?

Alex

@Jenayah That's a good example.

Rand al'Thor

1

Q: Tish'a Veshishim - mi yodeya?

Who knows sixty-nine? Please cite/link your sources, if possible. At some point in the next few days, I will: Upvote all interesting answers. Accept the best answer. Go on to the next number.

mi-yodeya-series number

... the heck?

Jenayah

Ok, so I don't understand neither the title nor the first paragraph - a mitzvot? a patriarch? mishna? wutwutwut?

onewho

a mitzvot is basically a good deed

Jenayah

To be tempered by the fact that the Q was first asked in 2010, true, but it seems to have some "reputation" - I fetched that in the "frequent" tab

Alex

8:28 PM

@Jenayah So ideally, the title could have been written as "Patriarchs keeping the Commandments". But we assume that someone who would know the answer to that question would by definition know that "avot" means "patriarchs" and "mitzvot" means commandments. That doesn't really help for someone else reading the question, but we might also assume that someone who doesn't know "avot" and "mitzvot" wouldn't be interested in the question. All in all, it's an imperfect system, but we try (sometimes)

@Jenayah For example, one of the answers there says: This question was discussed by the Meforshim (traditional commentators)

The answerer used a "term" but explained it in parentheses.

@Randal'Thor That's part of a series that is debatable whether they are real questions. In any case, the question could still have been explained, like in this other one from the series which explains:

The traditional Passover song "Echad - mi yodeya" implies a possible presupposition that there is a Jewish significance to be found for each natural number. Accordingly, there is an ongoing series on Mi Yodeya that is attempting to unearth significant Judaism facts about each number, in sequence.

Jenayah

@Alex ok, so it's kind of a funnel thing? Explicit title, "understandable" first paragraph, and the further you go, the more "ok" it is to use "technical" words? (as long as you keep defining them briefly, that is)

Alex

@Jenayah That might be how it works out in practice sometimes. I think it's really that most people who are used to using certain phrases as part of regular conversation in their daily lives, find it burdensome to use only "general terminology".

Sometimes other users leave comments asking the poster to edit, or they edit out the jargon themselves.

Like this comment from today:

Welcome to Mi Yodeya! Please take a moment to look over our tour where you’ll find useful information about our site. I’ve gone ahead and helped you out with the tags and replaced the more yeshivish terminology you used with wording that’s easier for the layman to understand. If you don’t like any of these changes or want to change more, please feel more than welcome to edit it yourself. Thank you for your insightful question and I hope to see you around! — DonielF 16 hours ago

Ironic that even the dejargoning comment used jargon to refer to what he was dejargoning.

Jenayah

8:45 PM

@Alex it uses one jargon term, which is made understandable by the four other lines of text, so that one's okay :p

Adamant

10:01 PM

It doesn't make sense not to use lots of these words.

Imagine if you had to call the Bible "a Christian holy book."

Jenayah

@Adamant eh, I don't think they redefine the Torah each time they use the word, do they?

Rand al'Thor

@Adamant I wasn't complaining about it. I'm not Jewish and would be unlikely to use that site anyway. It's just noteworthy that (from my limited observations) there's so much jargon used in posts there.

Lhurgoyf

11:32 PM

That Kevins question is easy

18 time units

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The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…