The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Jenayah

7:00 PM

Then again, my opinion

b_jonas

Oh right. Bringing experts. Let me do it the other way...

Jenayah

@b_jonas well, it's like story-ID for written works, I guess. You could as well ask it on Literature.SE, but you can very well choose to put down your bags on either site, just don't cross-ask

Same with movie/TV props, pretty sure Movies.SE could answer that as well

Also, if you're a new user to the network, you will probably encounter SFF before Mythology.SE

@b_jonas to be honest, I have mixed feelings about the "bringing experts" argument. When the question is asked for the first time, ok. When it's an old one with an accepted answer or stuff, bumping it back isn't likely to attract "more" experts, IMHO

But it could be of interest for people browsing/watching the tag, true.

b_jonas

@Jenayah I'm not saying that. I just linked them from Mythology's main chat room. That's all. I won't retag.

I'll go on to the other character-id and object-id questions. You'll eventually find out why.

Jenayah

@b_jonas did they have more info there? I'm curious now :) also, don't take my word for it, I mean, if you feel like retagging, retag :) I'm one user, other people may have other opinions, and if you feel like it could use the tag, well, go on

b_jonas

scifi.stackexchange.com/q/119651/4918 this probably doesn't need character-id, but I don't want to bump it.

Jenayah

7:07 PM

@b_jonas now I'm teased. What are you plotting? :p

Or scheming.

Nah, scheming looks different.

(kudos to whoever gets the reference)

b_jonas

@Jenayah I'm making a link for meta about all the multi-questions where you have to identify multiple characters or objects from a picture or video.

I have a draft, but want to find the full list before I post.

dpaste.com/3G406XA

Jenayah

@b_jonas to be fair, even if it is indeed part of a show I don't see the need for episode-id either

b_jonas

@Jenayah The whole episode-id tag is probably not needed. We can just use [story-id*] [star-trek] to identify a Star Trek episode, and [story-id*] alone to identify an episode from some minor anime series that doesn't have a tag or other questions on our site.

But it's a tag that's a tradition, so we don't change it until some diamond mod gets very fed up and merges it.

Jenayah

@b_jonas wow, lots of work there. Kudos for compiling that list!

b_jonas

@Jenayah I wanted such a list for a while. I'd prefer just a list of the good questions from them, but this way is more objective and so it's harder to complain about my biased selection.

Jenayah

7:14 PM

Hey, can I nitpick a bit? When you post that Meta question, could you just replace the links with the questions' titles (linked to the question, of course), because it would then be easier to go back to one or another for clarification ;D links themselves aren't much explicit

Though if you don't want to that's also fine. I'll probably edit them, though :)

b_jonas

@Jenayah The SE formatter shows them as question titles in a post (but not in a comment or chat)

Jenayah

@b_jonas oh blimey, I didn't know that. Sorry!

b_jonas

so they show up properly. just paste it into the big textarea after "Ask Question" if you want to try

It's magic

Jenayah

You know, I think I saw once that it didn't work in chat/comments or what, and then proceeded to always make it manually when posting a Q/A. And now, I feel like such a noob :'D

b_jonas

It's fine to add the title manually too. I sometimes do that if I want a different link title. But in a long list like this, just links is simpler.

Like I write in that draft, I really enjoy the community aspect of such challenges, working together with others.

Jenayah

7:19 PM

@b_jonas yeah, my favorite recent one was the one with the robots T-shirt back in May

b_jonas

Just like what I liked in the Droidikar puzzle, see puzzle at darthsanddroids.net/orb/checklist.php , solution spoilers in thread irregularwebcomic.net/draakslair/viewtopic.php?t=8270

I organized the search party for that, and we got the complete answer very quickly.

Even though some of them were really stumpers, we all came at it from different angles and many of us exchanged ideas quickly in chat.

Jenayah

Damn, I can't for the life of me find that question I was talkng about

Nevermind!

53

Q: Who are these robots?

I came across this image of "Robotic Characters From TV and Film (1927-2012)". I recognise a few of them, but I don't think I can recognise them all. Who are these robots?

character-identification

b_jonas

@Jenayah Exactly. That's why I need the lsit.

Jenayah

@b_jonas eheh, true!

b_jonas

Mind you, there's some crazy javascript involved, so the links show up as an URL at first, before they get turned to a title, and that mechanism can sometimes get hiccups for a long list, sadly.

Also, there are a lot of these questions I haven't seen, and they're often a good read with eyecandy pictures.

Hmm. I can't tell if scifi.stackexchange.com/q/126184/4918 should count in the list or not.

There's a neighbor who lives on the groundfloor below me and is always cooking something in oil in his kitchen with his window wide open. The smell comes in through all my windows, the door, and two ventillation shafts. This evening he's cooking something with garlic, it smells.

This is what you get in an apartment with windows all facing one wall. In my parents' house, this was never a problem: you just closed the windows on the side with smells or noise, and opened the windows on the other side of the house.

Jenayah

7:39 PM

@b_jonas wouldn't know. From Valorum's answer it doesn't seem like there was an actual list to be detailed, but I haven't seen that episode, so I don't know if that's the only picture we get of said DVDs. I don't hink I get a say in the matter

b_jonas

But even then, oily smells were rare.

Darn, another movie one that's hard to decide. What's with these? scifi.stackexchange.com/q/127389/4918

I chose to exclude the first one and include the second one, but can be convinced otherwise.

Oh no. More film ones.

I'll exclude scifi.stackexchange.com/q/128716/4918 too.

This film one is totally included though: scifi.stackexchange.com/q/131623/4918 (it's getting subjective)

Fun fact: TIL that in the Italian edition of the visual dictionary the blade length adjust button became a charge connector. I guess the book was not translated by a protocol droid knowing thousands of languages. — lfurini Jun 18 '16 at 10:36

lol. such amount of Star Wars trivia

Jenayah

@b_jonas browsing around the network, I found this physics.stackexchange.com/q/273309 which was unfortunately closed, but redirected to Home Improvement SE. Might be worth a question there!

Well, my own answer would be to grill bacon whenever it starts to smell like garlic, because that way you have a nice bacon smell, and you can eat bacon :)

From the sounds of it, it might build up to quite a bacon budget, though!

b_jonas

Bacon smell isn't nice indoors.

Jenayah

To each his own :p

On a more serious tone, I wonder if yo could patch up something with sodium bicarbonate. This stuff does wonders at removing odors.

Well actually, this stuff does wonders for a lot of house hacks

user132126

8:29 PM

What you'd need for something like that is an ozone device or ozone spray

b_jonas

I don't need anything. I just have to close the window in the room I am in, wait half hours until the lady finishes cooking, then open both windows to let the smell out.

user132126

"Need" implying you wanted to do something else about it, obviously.

b_jonas

If the weather isn't hot, then close both windows instead of just one.

user132126

I have been thinking about getting an ozone generator myself, but the mostly look like these industrial units that I don't want.

b_jonas

What I want to do is continue compiling this list (I might not finish this evening, but still). I was just distracted by the shinies giantitp.com/comics/oots1136.html

scifi.stackexchange.com/q/133436/4918 more film stuff. at this rate we're getting to things like my own cross-site-dupe scifi.stackexchange.com/q/145627/4918 where you have to watch the entire film to answer.

hmm, should that one be tagged character-id* by the way?

user132126

8:42 PM

Yup.

b_jonas

@WebHead Wait, did you rename yourself? I only recognize your avatar scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7686/4918 , not your nick.

user132126

Yup.

user132126

Changed it up, but left the avatar to make it a little easier for people familiar with me.

b_jonas

The blue nick confused me too of course. I see you signed for Arts.

user132126

Yup, Arts & Crafts mod. Catija was, too, until the Powers That Be Cordelia'd her.

b_jonas

8:49 PM

Oh! I just remembered I'll have another MLP question in that list, since there's that one with the painters

Jenayah

I wanted to answer that "Unburied bodies and disease" question, but it was put as off-topic - not the point. The point is, I got to dig up that excellent CDC article on the Black Death's biological warfare origins. If anyone wants a good (though gruesome) read on the matter, it's here: wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/9/01-0536_article

Corvo Attano

I think episode-id should exist to specify TV with just one tag @b_jonas @Jenayah

I haven’t been on SE for long at all so I’m likely wrong

Jenayah

@CorvoAttano that's the entire point of the tag ;D

Well, actually, not only for TV

Corvo Attano

But I don’t think it should be deleted

Well, series in general

user132126

If you have questions about how to use identification tags, I'm probably your guy.

Jenayah

8:52 PM

Applies for whatever is a series, but which you know it's a series and you can kinda name it, or really want that very episode

b_jonas

Hehe. scifi.stackexchange.com/q/135406/4918 three answers, all naming different people. All ancient bearded men look the same to us, it seems. One of the answers shows a picture that doesn't even have a mustache.

Corvo Attano

English is okay but series should have a plural form

user132126

I spent an absurd amount of time looking at tags, with a focus at one point on the -id tags, since the way we tag ID questions often conflicts with the rest of our tagging conventions.

Jenayah

@CorvoAttano here's the tag wiki

b_jonas

@WebHead I've been asking them in chat for days. You can read the backlog if you want.

user132126

8:53 PM

Got a link to one? A little too distracted to search for where they'd start

b_jonas

Specifically I'm going through the character-id* or object-id* questions now. I'll have to look at actor-id* too, which I totally forgot about.

Jenayah

@CorvoAttano technically, it's kind of already a plural form, innit?

user132126

Are you trying to clean them up and remove them where they don't belong, or...?

b_jonas

@WebHead chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46323519#46323519 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46323581#46323581 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46323677#46323677 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46329873#46329873

Corvo Attano

@Jenayah but a word which is spelled and pronounced differently

b_jonas

8:56 PM

@WebHead Or. See chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46330377#46330377 and below.

Jenayah

Or even further back in the month:

Aug 15 at 14:20, by b_jonas

Can I remove story-identification from https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/10640/4918 "Who are the characters in this Top Gear episode supposed to be?"

and above/below

b_jonas

@WebHead chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46330353#46330353 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46330489#46330489

Corvo Attano

How do I report an answer saying the exact same thing as the accepted one? Seems like a waste of space on the page

Jenayah

@CorvoAttano it's not always appropriate, actually, even if one of the answers is faaaar below the other in terms of quality.

Corvo Attano

Why not?

user132126

9:00 PM

1) robot pretty much useless, I'd probably axe it wherever I could. 2) Yes, it's really character-id, not story-id, because story-id requires provided plot details, not a list of characters. 3) lightsaber is fine. I don't think art belongs, though. 4) I think [folklore] is a good add to both of those, but I wouldn't necessarily remove mythology from the first one.

b_jonas

@Web Head Let me find which day last week I asked more of these.

Jenayah

@CorvoAttano Let me fetch the right Meta question for that

b_jonas

@WebHead Is it worth to bump for adding folklore?

Jenayah

@b_jonas as per what I posted above, August 15. :)

Corvo Attano

I wonder if anyone has trained an AI to answer some questions, maybe story-identification ones, on Stack Exchange

Like a professional Google user

user132126

9:01 PM

Considering folklore is also in the title and/or body? Probably not necessarily "worth" the bump.

Jenayah

@CorvoAttano that poor thing would end up killing itself

b_jonas

@WebHead Many of these were already answered in chat, see there chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46222998#46222998 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46223552#46223552 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46223628#46223628

user132126

But I'm not a person that cares about bumping the front page with edits, provided the edits are clearly useful.

user132126

Some debate whether tagging is useful, I have decided to stand on the side of "Yes, it is."

Jenayah

14

A: Do we have a policy on duplicate answers?

I'm not sure there's an "official" policy, per se, but there does seem to be a general "netiquette" on this topic, which roughly matches with my personal practices: This is the age old Fastest Gun In The West problem. Those who get the answer first should obviously be rewarded for their ...

b_jonas

9:03 PM

@WebHead chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46224163#46224163 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46224199#46224199 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46224502#46224502 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46224823#46224823 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46224917#46224917 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46225159#46225159 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46225280#46225280

And in many cases when a change was needed, I already did the edit.

Or someone else did the edit.

user132126

Well then, why am I looking at them? ;)

Jenayah

Basically, if it's bad, but answers the question, leave it there, DV if you want to, comment could be nice. But we don't delete answers just because they're badly written, completely speculative or stuff, as long as they somewhat answer the question at stake - I have a whole lot of declined flags stating that :p

b_jonas

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46225397#46225397 chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46225501#46225501

That's probably most of the character-id* or object-id* tagging questions I asked recently.

@WebHead Because you said you could provide guidance. Look at which ones are currently tagged wrong if that's simpler.

@WebHead Sure, it's just that I was editing a lot of them at the same time that day. It's probably ok now.

Corvo Attano

@Jenayah but to save time for people who are trying to find info about it (not the asker), wouldn't it be better to reward both and have a moderator put both names on a merged version if they were almost completely the same with no information unique but posted super close to each other in time?

user132126

Well, I'm looking through all of them to, see, but I was mostly responding to the chat messages, not looking at the changes that had been made.

b_jonas

9:06 PM

I'll add the folklore tags to both then.

Corvo Attano

9

Q: Who is (was?) this DC Comics villain?

I first read a DC comics story with this villain back in the 80's. Some things I remember about the character: He is portrayed as the bringer of the end of the world His name had some connection to Armageddon or apocalypse or something like that He was said to have his base "at the end of time"...

dc comics character-identification

user132126

Hmm. Character-ID where they don't know the story, either. It's sort of both, in those cases.

Corvo Attano

@WebHead why did you edit this, if I may ask?

It was bumped to the front, which seems odd

As it is from 2015

user132126

Edits do that. Old content should be kept up to quality standards, too.

Corvo Attano

Huh

b_jonas

9:08 PM

@WebHead Of course tagging is useful. I wouldn't have any way to create this list if the candidates I have to check weren't already reduced to a list of 500 questions by those tags.

user132126

It's an id question in which we know the medium, in this case, comics.

Jenayah

A very special case that appeared two days ago, though, @CorvoAttano. Someone copied-pasted the first draft of this answer, only adding a coffee online shop link at the end. That's spam and should be flagged as such.

user132126

ID questions where the medium is known (TV, comic, novel, short-story, movie), should include the medium tag.

user132126

Medium tags primary (and ideally sole purpose) on SFF are to supplement identification questions.

Jenayah

@CorvoAttano related:

19

A: My edits bump the question, can this be avoided?

No, edits intentionally always bump the question; it's part of the peer-review process that keeps the network well-groomed. As a matter of fact, there have been a number of pushes to get moderators that ability, and even they have been declined. It's fine to bump questions with properly substan...

user132126

9:10 PM

You should have been here for the great tagging weekend.

Corvo Attano

How can I see the previous versions of an answer?

Jenayah

@CorvoAttano well... conflicted feelings. First of all, I'm going to poke at @Randal'Thor because I don't even know if it's possible.

Mithrandir

Click the date of the last edit

@Jenayah @CorvoAttano no, that's not possible, technically

Jenayah

Actually, we have Mith and Web Head there so not needed :D

user132126

Bad answers, or answers that only repeat information already given (but in lower quality) deserve to be downvoted, IMO, and when there's enough downvotes, they'll fade out or hit a review queue.

Jenayah

9:13 PM

Also, the possibility to have several users contribute to the same answer exists, but it's a particular case and has been a topic of debate very recently. Before I go to lengths, what do you know of Community Wiki answers?

b_jonas

@CorvoAttano Click on the "edited" link under the answer.

user132126

CW is a feature that shouldn't really exist anymore and its use is generally discouraged, but not enough so that they've disabled it (yet).

b_jonas

(Ususally. The older version could be deleted and the poster could post a new answer, in which case it's harder.)

Jenayah

@WebHead debatable, but as long as said feature is there, better to tell people about it.

Corvo Attano

@Mithrandir @b_jonas it worked, thanks

b_jonas

9:16 PM

@Jenayah I'm getting bit in the ass. The formatter doesn't like long lists like this and gives up after a number of links. So I was wrong, I'll have to add the titles to the source text. Will do that after I posted the list. I can probably automate it.

user132126

Maybe debatable, but there have been various discussions around CW and various times, and I seem to recall SE employees indicating that it's a feature whose purpose isn't really necessary any more. I'd have to dig for that commentary, though.

Jenayah

@b_jonas aw :/

On an unrelated note, this "new contibutor thingy" is nice.

Mithrandir

....although buggy

b_jonas

scifi.stackexchange.com/q/140820/4918 "Cartoon with immortal man from the ice age" "I kind of think that's Lex Luthor's story(that pops up in my head when I think of it)." tag with some franchise tag, like dc? He doesn't even tell if he's looking for a movie or TV series or comic book. Just "story". Hate those questions. And does it need [tag:character-id*]?

Jenayah

@Mithrandir well, it's a ew feature, these things never learned fully well the first time, do they?

b_jonas

9:21 PM

@Jenayah What "new contributor thingy"? We've had a review queue for posts by new contributors for ages.

Jenayah

@b_jonas I'd vouch against char-id and dc

Mithrandir

@b_jonas There's a new indicator for new contributors under their usercards now.

Jenayah

@b_jonas open that one

3

Q: 80s/90s zombie(?) movie with a "stolen record" of a shower scene

Many years ago there was a sci-fi movie, probably zombie kind, from 80s or 90s, that I could only see a few minutes of. All I remember is that some guys found some dead zombie or something like that in a desert, one of them I believe was also in Robocop 3, but I'm not sure, the other thing was, ...

story-identification movie

user132126

@b_jonas Well, we know from that answer that it was DC, plus Lex Luthor was a tip off in the answer. But, I believe we have a policy against going back and editing IDs to be tagged "properly" based on accepted answers.

Jenayah

And

61

Q: Come Take a Look at our New Contributor Indicator!

This feature is now live across the network. We've been doing quite a bit of research into ways that we could help new users have better experiences that ultimately lead them to becoming increasingly valuable, long-term contributors to our sites. While this is still ongoing, it's starting to...

discussion featured new-users new-contributor-indicator

user132126

9:23 PM

IE, you don't tag an accepted story-id with wheel-of-time once Wheel of Time has been accepted.

Jenayah

@WebHead we do

21

Q: Should we tag (solved) story identification questions with the name of the author / property?

If an identification question has an accepted answer, it would make sense to tag it with the authors name. Or should we not tag it and leave it as a sort of trivia question for others?

discussion tags story-identification

user132126

Which, I think is a really horrible policy, but it does prevent a million edits

user132126

@Jenayah Not if you actually read that answer. It says "no"

b_jonas

@WebHead Yes, but it says "Lex Luthor" right in the question. So if there was no answer, we'd want some dc experts there, the ones that can comb through a thousand old dc comic books. After we asked the OP to clarify if it's a book or a movie or a TV series.

user132126

And not only is that answer 7 years old, but a lot of "what we do" hasn't necessarily been codified in meta yet.

Jenayah

9:25 PM

@WebHead I read that, my "we do" was "we did discuss that on Meta", actually

b_jonas

We have a pretty strong precedent for not tagging all the story-id questions about "Profession" to isaac-asimov, yes.

user132126

@Jenayah My apologies! I thought it was we do tag that.

b_jonas

We only tag if the question specifically says that Asimov is the author (not just that it appeared in one of the many anthologies edited by Asimov)

Jenayah

@WebHead no worries :)

user132126

To me, it makes much more sense to retroactively tag solved ID questions with 1 or 2 tags that put it in the right category.

Napoleon Wilson

9:28 PM

Tags are for questions, not for answers.

user132126

I feel like it would give us a better representation of what properties our works are about if we look at our tag clouds.

Jenayah

@WebHead yeah, as I stated somewhere above I'm alright with adding the media tag and correct ID tag, but for aliens/robots/whatever, let it be for OP to judge. Just my opinion though

user132126

@NapoleonWilson But the tag is for the question.

user132126

The question would still be about that work, even if the author didn't remember the name of it.

Jenayah

As, so we're not talking about the same thing.

b_jonas

9:29 PM

We don't do that because we want an excuse to immediately close story-id that don't mention any sci-fi or fantasy elements, rather than leave them open and benevolently assume that they are implicitly for a sci-fi or fantasy work because the poster knows he shouldn't post other story-id questions here.

Napoleon Wilson

Even with the often employed "experts" argumentation for tags it doesn't make sense. A Wheel of Time expert doesn't care squat about an answered ID question asking for WoT.

user132126

I don't like tags like robot or aliens

b_jonas

So we do the same for tags as for closing for consistency.

Jenayah

Indexation question. Could this retroadding of tags make the Google rankings show up differently?

b_jonas

@NapoleonWilson Sometimes they might, if they want to find duplicates.

user132126

9:29 PM

@NapoleonWilson Sure I do. I like to see how someone who's read the book would describe it, when they don't remember the book. Or see what details the answerer provided to successfully solve the OP's question

user132126

And yes, finding duplicates is another good example.

Jenayah

@WebHead neither, tbh

b_jonas

But usually the story-id answers are well written and have good keywords in them so you can search by keywords.

user132126

Data visualization is also improved when tags are used correctly.

user132126

For example, scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9522/…

b_jonas

9:32 PM

Oh, I have a third. Wow.

Napoleon Wilson

An ID question isn't really a question about WoT, so I'm not even sure it improves any kind of statistics of questions about works in that regard.

user132126

Boosts the number of questions about that work, which indicates more people who've read it. Boosts the number of questions about that work with answers, giving people credit for their tag badges when they answer them, makes them fall into the ignore bin if you're just someone perusing old story-id questions but know you don't care about a certain work/franchise.

Napoleon Wilson

And seeing it practically, the answers to ID questions are likely works where there are none to one other questions on the site about. I don't know how many people really ask an ID for Harry Potter all the time.

user132126

But we have many story id questions where the short stories are different but the author is the same.

user132126

And author tags are under discussion again.

Napoleon Wilson

9:38 PM

Hmm, the tag badges thing isn't too unreasonable, since it does show expertise with the work.

user132126

It's a unique system. AFAIK no other stack has a ID system quite like ours, and several have removed or cracked down on them, not just Movies & TV.

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson well, there is a story-id for Star Wars...

user132126

Unfortunately, the system is just kind of hacked together to work OK within the SE framework, and it wasn't hacked together with its current size in mind.

user132126

The things I'd do to our tags if I had access to the database for just a couple hours, lol

user132126

Paper and pencil are calling my name now. Adios!

Jenayah

9:44 PM

@WebHead ciao!

b_jonas

@NapoleonWilson Well, they ask id questions for DC or Marvel stories with the franchise known sometimes.

Napoleon Wilson

@Jenayah Like this?

Star Wars Described by a Non Fan

►

@WebHead Well, Literature is quite similar, though, no?

Mithrandir

@b_jonas that's more episode-identification

Napoleon Wilson

And they do have ubiquitous author tags.

@WebHead Well, of course.

@b_jonas Then they should maybe use the tags indeed, though. But I wouldn't consider these work tags, they're still about the question and not based on the answer.

b_jonas

Darn it, scifi.stackexchange.com/q/145546/4918 could have been a multi-id, but he only asks for one character, not all characters.

Jenayah

9:51 PM

@NapoleonWilson ahah no, not exactly. But well, you know the demo effect, I can't seem to find that question again now :p

(and I don't mean the April's fool one mind you)

b_jonas

@Mithrandir Even for comics?

Mithrandir

@b_jonas yep

b_jonas

22

Q: What stories and characters are referenced in this painting of a Science Fiction and Fantasy Lounge?

This image depicts a fantasy version of the Storm Crow Alehouse, a real-world fantasy themed tavern. This one is obviously filled with various references to fictional works. Can we identify the whole list of them? Click for full resolution, or visit the artist's page.

character-identification object-identification

Jenayah

@Mithrandir uh, no, not for Marvel/DC at least. That shouldn't be.

b_jonas

^ Ah yes. This is the one I was looking for. Not the biggest, but I have very fond memories of it.

Mithrandir

9:53 PM

@Jenayah Well, it depends on the specific case of course

Jenayah

If the only thing you remember is "it was a DC work", the tag dc is ok, episode-identification isn't

b_jonas

Jack B Nimble's comment made it particularly sweet for me.

Jenayah

cf our discussion a week(ish) ago on that question

5

Q: Comic about a man on the run who helps a lost girl and encounters a woman who can see into the future

In the early seventies DC reprinted a story as a second or third feature in one of their comics. It was possibly a National story from the forties or fifties about a man on the run from the law. He's a good man, wrongly accused (though of what I cannot recall), who comes to the aid of a lost and ...

story-identification dc comics episode-identification

b_jonas

And it has a tractable enough size that I could keep up with all the findings and edit them into an answer. For the bigger multi-id questions I gave up on that, and only provided the numbering and started the post.

Napoleon Wilson

See, if you wanna know what CW is actually good for...

b_jonas

9:56 PM

@NapoleonWilson CW doesn't really help all that much for them.

We mark them as CW by tradition, but if the CW feature didn't exist they'd still work the same.

Even this way some people don't have the rep to edit a CW answer, so they chat or comment and we edit for them.

Napoleon Wilson

It does, since every random passerby can throw is crappy one-liner into a big reasonably exhaustive answer that's an actual answer to the question. And they don't need 2000 rep for that.

@b_jonas Well, sure, but it makes things easier.

That's like the singlemost thing CW is actually made for.

b_jonas

@NapoleonWilson Not every random passwerby. Only everyone with 100 rep.

The rest have to submit an edit that will be reviewed, just like they can do for non-CW answers.

Napoleon Wilson

Well, that is sufficiently random. 101ers are noobs. ;-)

Jenayah

@b_jonas does association bonus count?

b_jonas

@NapoleonWilson True, I have 101 rep on most SE sites where I have an account.

@Jenayah I think so.

Jenayah

9:59 PM

@b_jonas ok!

b_jonas

(At some point there was some talk on MathOverflow that they'd like to opt out from users getting association bonus on their site, but nothing came from that.)

Jenayah

@b_jonas wait, what? Secession much or what?

b_jonas

@Jenayah No no. They already have privilages for secession. They joined the SE network late, they were an independent site for quite a long time.

They enjoy some special privilages because of that.

Jenayah

@b_jonas ok then. I mean, not exactly ok, but I didn't know the story.

b_jonas

As in, when they joined, the original owners signed a special contract that they have rights to easily secede the SE network if they ever feel the need for that. That privilage lasts forever.

The association bonus thing was stupid though, so it's good that nothing ever came from it.

There aren't masses of people abusing their assoc bonus by leaving stupid comments or anything. There are newbies asking bad off-topic questions, but the assoc bonus has nothing to do with that.

Napoleon Wilson

10:05 PM

The association bonus does make sense, since it skips some pretty easy noob stuff that is universal across sites.

Where there's a big problem is the voting and HNQ stuff, but that's a topic of its own with discussions ad nauseam.

b_jonas

Plus there are always some people who cross-post the same question to two or three SE sites at the same time, in which case we delete all but one on sight.

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson I think B was referring to the time Math Overflow wanted to get rid of that for them.

Napoleon Wilson

@Jenayah I know.

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson what do you mean?

Napoleon Wilson

@Jenayah That's...really a huge thing to get into. ;-)

Jenayah

10:07 PM

@NapoleonWilson No, I mean, I'v read a lot of comments and posts on that I'm just wondering what your stance is

Napoleon Wilson

You know what HNQs are and have seen some discussions about their viral nature and the vote skewing around them?

b_jonas

Also, when MathOverflow agreed to join the network, the unified SE login thing didn't even exist yet.

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson I think 60% of my rep comes from HNQ, to be honest... yeah, I've seen these arguments

b_jonas

Or rather, it did exist, but in a different form.

Napoleon Wilson

@Jenayah It's complicated. They have pros and cons. I'm not entirely against them and their purpose for advertizing smaller sites is good. But I agree that their viral nature and the voting by 101-"noobs" that exponentiates the hotness is problematic.

b_jonas

10:08 PM

The site didn't automatically offer you to create a linked account just because you were logged in to another SE site, you had to create a linked account deliberately.

So the request makes some amount of sense in the historical context.

Jenayah

@b_jonas well, if you're going to join a Math site, yeah, you should think twice, ahah :)

(kidding)

b_jonas

SE added a feature later, MathOverflow didn't like it and didn't know about it when they joined, so they're asking to opt out.

They also reserve the privilage to brew tea. No other SE site has that.

Napoleon Wilson

Some of my preferred solutions would be excluding association bonus for upvotes or adding a cool-off timer until you can vote on them. Stuff like that. Or even just better surveillance and management by moderators.

b_jonas

@NapoleonWilson What? Counting the assoc bonus in downvotes and close votes and all those things, but not to upvotes?

Napoleon Wilson

@b_jonas Something like 15 rep without assoc for upvoting and 115 with assoc for downvoting. So you can vote equally once you have 115 with assoc and you can't vote for HNQs when you're a 101er passing by and seeing a "funny" question that you'd like to shower with candy.

Jenayah

10:13 PM

@NapoleonWilson mixed feelings, to be honest. On SFF/Worldbuilding/recreational, yeah. On serious stuff like IPS, if an answer is worthy of the upvote, by all means go for it, we might be talking suicide here.

b_jonas

It probably wouldn't have hurt too much to give them the privilage, but I don't think it's necessary either. They should reserve that card for when SE pushes really nasty stuff on them.

Napoleon Wilson

That's a more extreme measure, though. I also like the idea of having to wait just a little bit of time until you can vote when you're a 101er. So you can't just throw out votes like mad in the first few seconds. That guarantees that you're actually engaged to the question when you come back.

@Jenayah Uh...frankly, sites like IPS and Workplace are hit the worst by unjustified HNQ votes.

And when we're talking about suicide, that question shouldn't even exist on IPS. That's really not what IPS is for.

b_jonas

scifi.stackexchange.com/q/149574/4918 "Does anyone know the name of the actor or the character ?" should I add actor-identification?

Napoleon Wilson

The problem here being worthy, but the avergage 101 passerby does not understand what a "worthy" post is to the site. They see a funny movie question or an IPS answer they agree with and slap a vote onto it, without considering if there's really worth to it.

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson I'm not rferring to "I really, really can't do this anymore, please help me" questions, rather "X relative has a ST history. We know she's dealing with XYZ. She recently told us that blahblahblah. HOw can we explain her to move on" or stuff like that

very poorly phrsed on my part, granted

@b_jonas I'd say yes

Napoleon Wilson

10:19 PM

She isn't helped by voting more massively on the answers, though. ;-)

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson and then you have the problem of lurkers... I would know.

Mithrandir

HNQ and IPS seriously do not mix well.

Napoleon Wilson

Anyway, so much to the downsides of the association bonus.

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson my phrasing is poor because I'm hasting, granted. But if there's someone out there who's been dealing with a similar situation, and has a relevant answer, then, it's ok

Mithrandir

Every time, the questions gets lots of "try this" and non-IPS answers that get upvoted and then they're impossible to delete by normal standards as well as getting hundreds of comments.

Jenayah

10:21 PM

Upon rereading, that last Star Wars question doesn't need char-id I think.

b_jonas

@Mithrandir But the answers have nothing to do with the assoc bonus, only the comments do. HNQ does, of course.

Napoleon Wilson

@Jenayah Well, yeah. But that's what we normally do. Have people with knowledge/experience answer and vote their answers up if they make sense. Now throw 100 times the amount of roadside gazers onto the question and see what happens. ;-)

Mithrandir

@b_jonas The votes on those answers are often very highly inflated by HNQ users, even though they're actually delete-worthy.

b_jonas

Some SE sites do have the "privilage" or perhaps punishment of never appearing in HNQ, but it's not the sites where it would help..

@Mithrandir Yes.

That's a problem, and so are the stupid comments.

Mithrandir

And that's the association bonus that allows them to vote.

Jenayah

10:23 PM

@b_jonas there are some surprises though... I've seen at least two HNQ Chess questions during this last month, that was unexpected

@NapoleonWilson the "someone out there", I meant as an already-there user; the "it's ok" part was for "sure, upote it even if you came straight from HNQ"

Alex

The upvotes here for Hot Network Questions are way over the top. I just reached almost three days reputation limits from one answer.

Napoleon Wilson

But your HNQ user will also upvote the 10 additional bullshit answers (left there by the likes of him).

(Of course I'm exaggerating, or am I?)

Jenayah

Holy Molly, three Chess questions!

b_jonas

@Jenayah Were they actually good ones though?

Mithrandir

@NapoleonWilson No. For IPS, that's actually not an exaggeration.

b_jonas

10:26 PM

The HNQ ones are often not the good ones, they're the ones that are so easy to understand that every stupid reader thinks they have to open it from the title.

Jenayah

@b_jonas I lurk on several sites, but not on Chess, wouldn't know which standards. Let me fetch them, you'll judge

Mithrandir

I lurk on every site, but I usually don't vote unless I'm actually familiar with the site... or landed there from Google.

Napoleon Wilson

And IPS has another indirect problem as a result of this. They now have a ton of users who have maybe 2 or 3 posts, don't really get the site, and have close/reopen privileges already. Because their "you should totally break up with him!"-1-liner was so awesome.

Mithrandir

@NapoleonWilson Indeed. Drives me nuts.

Jenayah

37

Q: How to make a 6 year old think more?

I have been teaching my 6 year old daughter chess for past 2 years. She plays reasonably well. She often defeats level 25 in Chess Lv 100 app and sometimes Level 6 in Chess.com app. So I am guessing her ELO rating might be around 1200. I am trying to encourage her to think a little more and be m...

beginner psychology

26

Q: Why is it illegal to castle with both hands?

I was watching the match between Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Hikaru Nakamura and Nakamura used both hands to castle. Why is it illegal to castle using both hands? What's wrong with that?

castling

16

Q: Should you always try your best (play as if your opponent is a grandmaster)?

Should you always play like a grandmaster no matter how (un)skilled your opponent is? I thought of a situation where intentionally not playing to the best of your abilities is a good strategy. Like, let's say you're playing against a chess noob. You don't need to waste moves defending your army ...

strategy

Might have missed one.

b_jonas

10:29 PM

Yeah, those sound like the one that newbies will visit from HNQ and leave bad answers or unnecessary comments.

Those are the ones that shouldn't be in HNQ.

Jenayah

Man I shouldn't have talked about chess, I miss my chess partner now :/

Three week's time, when I'm back. Damn, it's been a while

Napoleon Wilson

Never got into that. I'm too stupid for chess. I have zero strategic thinking. ;-)

b_jonas

Oh, that reminds me, I actually have a fourth list-id question, but it's not on Sci Fi SE. Guess which SE site it is on.

2

Q: Liquor bottle puzzle in Eavesdropper comic strip

Strip 10 of the Eavesdropper comic strip shows a small bar with a sequence of seven liquor bottles on a shelf. Can you identify them? The comic strip apparently has a series of puzzles, with one puzzle encoding a word found on each page of the comic strip (except for the first few pages). ...

liquor identification

B... eekeeping?

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson don't worry, you can still play Whac-A-Mole in arcade rooms ;D

@b_jonas this sounds like the kind of stuff you'd find on IMDB trivia. "at timestamp 10:23, character X drinks from bottle Y which was released in March 1978"

imdb.com/title/tt0395169/goofs?item=gf0875084

b_jonas

@Jenayah Ah, the Playstation problem. Yes.

And it gets much worse in films depicting mediaeval armor and weaponry.

The mediaeval weapons and armor experts immediately show up and denounce the whole film as anachronistic.

Jenayah

10:40 PM

"These guys really have no life", thought the girl who spent countless hours trying to find obscure, not-even-half-remembered books with a one-liner description, based on the sole premise that it was a French one and she spoke French, too

Napoleon Wilson

And then those people self-answer them 5 minutes ahead! ;-P

b_jonas

xkcd.com/771 gives another of those examples.

And then there's the Star Wars trivia buffs who have all visual guides on their shelves.

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson no, that one was actually ok in its description, and what took me those dreaded 5 minutes is putting up a decent answer as a new user, while this guy just posted the title and an image! Come on!

Napoleon Wilson

I hear ya. ;-)

Jenayah

I was more thinking about stuff like this one

4

Q: Book where a Prehistoric Hidden Meadow is Found by Two Teenaged Boys In France

I read this book in the late 70s, not sure when it was published. One summer, two boys find a pristine meadow that can only be found through a narrow passageway. They first are drawn by pictographs and early art and painting on what begins as a cave/passage wall. Once on the other side that can...

story-identification novel

Ok, that's not really a one-liner, but as said above, I have my innate reasons to be ranty.

Napoleon Wilson

10:45 PM

Well, ID questions can be fun to answer.

b_jonas

I don't remember much of that drug lord story either.

At least, there's not much I'm really sure about. I just have vague guesses, half of which are probably wrong.

I'm not sure if I'll dare to ask it.

On the main site that is.

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46320723#46320723 this one from today morning

Jenayah

@b_jonas I can do that for you, if you want. "There's this guy I know, he remembers a story about a drug lord..." :p

b_jonas

@Jenayah Lol.

And he's on a vacation and I don't want to disturb him with further questions now.

Napoleon Wilson

I once had a really interesting dream about an interesting concept. I was considering asking if there was ever a story made around that.

b_jonas

@NapoleonWilson Yes, I might have hallucinated this one too. That drug might cause vivid hallucinations.

In fact, I think it might let you manifest on a spiritual plane or something.

Like the plane from The cactus story.

73

A: Who is this character on the Star Wars: A New Hope poster?

It may not be anyone... consider this other Russian poster for Star Wars. This is quite literally a "space cowboy". I mean one could argue it is supposed to be a depiction of Han Solo, but how could you prove it? Here is another for Return of the Jedi that I have no idea what is going on... ...

lol

nice examples

Jenayah

10:52 PM

ahah, indeed!

b_jonas

scifi.stackexchange.com/q/152541/4918 Perhaps this hallucinatory drug.

scifi.stackexchange.com/q/152546/4918 Oh wow, there's a third one about European posters for Star Wars.

Darn I'm out of votes.

scifi.stackexchange.com/q/153105/4918 Oh yes! I was looking forward to including this one.

Hmm, I can't tell if this is a good match for this story-id question because it's been ages since I read that short story, but I'll post it. It's worth a chance.

b_jonas

11:15 PM

Ok, it is sort of a good match. Not to the first paragraph of the question, because Asimov certainly isn't "better-known for bad fantasy than for SF", and it's not a novel.

And the dialog at the very start isn't between captains, we have to wait a bit more for the actual soldiers to speak.

We'll see. Maybe he's mixing two stories.

Anyway, good night.

Jenayah

@b_jonas FWIW, a first cover was posted (see the previous answser's revisions), the OP commented they weren't sure, and when the second one was posted, they said they remembered that one. No idea about the story, did't read either one :)

those comments shouldn't have been deleted, I think. Another user looking for the same story might remember the first cover.

Granted, you can always look at the revision history, but if ther's no indications in the comments, why woud you do so?

'night! :)

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The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…