The Classroom

12:51 AM

Does disagreeing with a close vote reduce the close vote number?

I don't know? I suspect that it's not a reduction, but a separate counter, and if the reviewers "no" votes add up to more than the close votes, it wipes the slate clean.

Ben I.

I voted against closing the copy/paste question

This is interesting. I wonder if this is why they wait several weeks after public beta to name moderators:

1

Q: How do close votes work from the point of view of a moderator?

Let's say some close votes roll in on a question. If regular members cast a close votes, it will take 5 such votes for the question to get closed. However, it looks like if a moderator casts a close vote, the question is closed immediately. Example: https://fitness.stackexchange.com/questions/...

discussion

Gypsy Spellweaver

I think the wait is for evaluation and paperwork

Ben I.

Since moderators cannot choose to cast "normal" open and close votes, then a beginning site would lost all community moderation abilities without nonmoderator high scorers

Gypsy Spellweaver

Even in public beta, the majority of the review queues don't need that much rep.

Ben I.

1:03 AM

What was the wording that RC used to describe good conversation questions?

I want to leave a comment about why I think the question should be left open, but I can't recall the wording. Folks can still disagree with me and close, but I thought I'd at least put my $.02 in about it

Gypsy Spellweaver

Something about not just getting lists, but personal experiences?

Ben I.

1:24 AM

"Good subjective" :)

Gypsy Spellweaver

2:05 AM

@BenI. As you found in the above post, mod CV is binding. I hope that RC, or some other CM, includes comments/instructions to the new mods on what community privileges they loose. The CV is just one of several places where a mod no longer acts as a community member, but as a community representative. Sometimes because of binding votes, and sometimes just because of the extra bling attached to their name.

Ben I.

2:28 AM

That's pretty much my hesitation to being a mod right there in a nutshell.

I want to be of the community, not above it.

It's why I change the topic every time someone tells me I'm going to be a mod, or hints that it is somehow... I don't know... better?

Did that make sense?

Gypsy Spellweaver

Yes, it makes sense. You might want to find other mods and ask them about that aspect of mod-ship. Only because it's a set I've encountered frequently I'd suggest a pair from Super User. Journeyman Geek elected in 2014 and seems to have it balanced nicely, and David Postill freshly minted. Both are often in the SU chatroom Root Access.

I also suspect that if selected, that RC, or someone, will email, and you can discuss it with him/them as well.

Ben I.

Like... I want to make this community great, and I want to serve it in whatever capacity i will do that best. If that is as a mod, then I will do my damnedest to do a good job in that role, but that is somewhat putting my personal preference aside.

Gypsy Spellweaver

That was my hesitation to self-nominate as well. In my case, I can probably be more useful there than with the Q&A since so much of my related experience is dated. I decided that maybe, if others wanted, and SE choose, I could help that way.

Ben I.

If, indeed, I get offered the mod position, I might ask you for that again. It still feels premature to me to reach out to others. Plus, I don't want to be conceited, like, "obviously, I'm going to get this. I'm so great here..."

I even feel a little silly having this conversation right now. I'm overtired, so it makes me talk before I think :P

Thanks for letting me unload a bit, though, Gypsy

Gypsy Spellweaver

Never a problem. Discretion is the better part of valor, yet chance favors the prepared mind as well.

Off subject, again, I'm outdated in the field, what do you think of my markup vs programming languages answer? cseducators.stackexchange.com/a/704/104

Ben I.

2:44 AM

I really liked that example. And I somehow missed that you'd posted. I'm always surprised when I see an answer I've missed, because I feel like I almost never leave the site!

I think I upvote about 98-99% of the time. Down-voting is a very rare occurrence

Gypsy Spellweaver

My trick is to keep a tab open to the home page, and it changes color when there's an update. Wish it'd give me an audio alert instead, but not bad enough to write a script.

Ben I.

Mostly it's upvote, or don't vote.

I wish I got a text message whenever a new question was posted.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I can't do this on mobile. Too fat-fingered for mobile typing. :(, best I can do is have it chirp when I get a notice in the inbox. And some review of material, but any replies have to be at the real kbd.

Ben I.

Oh, definitely. I can't type answers out on mobile. I can barely even manage this conversation.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I tried that abt 12 hours ago. Just didn't want to get off the couch. Had to delete my post and use the desktop. :(

Ben I.

2:55 AM

Haha :) I haven't tried to write an actual post yet from my phone. I just feel like autocorrect will get me to post something blatantly inappropriate somehow :P

Gypsy Spellweaver

I did try an answer once :(. Life runs on lessons learned

I probably miss quoted that tune, but close enough.

Hey! Peter got 2K and never said a word. ;P

Now we got two with mod-tool access. Moving right along.

Ben I.

Yeah, I think he got there today. Could've been yesterday?

Gypsy Spellweaver

I got a couple thoughts on the disputed question about copy/paste. First off, do you realize that he's one of the co-founders of CodeHS?

His co-founder is also a CSE user. So far, their answers have been, at least nominally, on-topic.

Ben I.

3:11 AM

I did not realize, no

Gypsy Spellweaver

The question, however, I'm unsure of. I wonder if it's market research?

Ben I.

Would it matter?

Gypsy Spellweaver

Secondly, I think to make it good subjective it should be asking for experience and/or impact on learning rather than "thoughts"

Thoughts is going to be opinions, if answered as thoughts. And not much value to the site. Experiences, and evaluations, however would be good to have for others to review.

Ben I.

To me, that sounds like both what they probably intended, and also describes the answers so far. We could change a few words there and make a comment that they can roll back the edit if they disagree with the (slightly) modified question.

Gypsy Spellweaver

They are both users on other SE sites, so I believe that roll-back is something they already understand. They also get a notice about, and chance to approve, any edits done as well.

In the user approves an edit, it's cosigned by community so that it's automatic approval.

Ben I.

3:17 AM

It seems like a very light change to me. Would you care to? I'm still on my phone.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I can try. English ain't my best subject :/

Ben I.

Aren't you just replacing the word "thoughts"? ;-)

Gypsy Spellweaver

Need to keep it consistent with the change. Simple replace looked chunky.

It's in.

And "reject" don't hurt my feelings at all.

Ben I.

I made one tiny tweak. I thought it was a great change

Gypsy Spellweaver

Good call.

Ben I.

3:28 AM

Since I did "improve edit", does that mean that it was also totally approved and you got the two points?

Gypsy Spellweaver

Yes.

Ben I.

That seems so odd to me.

Gypsy Spellweaver

In order to allow your "edit" to go through, since you have the rep for full edit priv. Community co-signed your approval of my edit, and then let your edit go through as well.

You should also have gotten 2 pts for your edit. I think.

Not that you need 2 pts. :) Nor do I worry about pts anyway.

Ben I.

If we posit that I am somehow such a useful editor that my opinion is nearly beyond reproach (which I rather disagree with), then why can't I look at someone's edit and say, "yes, this is clearly good"?

I don't ever get any editing points as far as I can tell.

Maybe now that we're public, I can get tag editing points again, I'm not sure.

Gypsy Spellweaver

Because, if your vote was binding automatically, then you could, in theory, reject and deny points to someone just because you don't like them.

Ben I.

3:35 AM

Sure, for a no vote. But I'm not understanding why I can edit unfettered, but can't approve someone else's.

Gypsy Spellweaver

I'm not all that sure how points work for lots of stuff. The only reason I know about the accept/edit, and the OP approvals is from the cleanup weekend I did on SU. I saw some atypical results from my edits and asked the mods in Root Access "What gives?" and got the answers.

I always review my edits so I can learn from what others do when they accept/edit or reject/edit. Just like this one, adding (or disallow) was a good call.

Just more of my autodidactic habits manifesting.

@BenI. Were you planning to rewrite the tag proposal question into separate questions as Gilles suggested?

Ben I.

In theory. I don't even remotely have the energy tonight. :p

Why do you ask?

Gypsy Spellweaver

3:51 AM

It showed up in the meta close queue. And, historically, one tag, close group of tags, per question allows voting on the question to show community choice without the need for answers. Also, once bigger, the mod can mark it as planned, or completed as it progresses.

Ben I.

"one tag, close group of tags" ?

Also, what do you mean by "bigger"?

Sorry - I'm not being cheeky. I just want to make sure I understand.

Gypsy Spellweaver

closely related, as in merging two or three into one tag, then all three or four in the question.

Ben I.

AH

Gypsy Spellweaver

Bigger is when it's a "project" to do the tag modification. Like editing 1000 posts to remove one tag/

Ben I.

Okay, I'm back up to speed now :)

I remember being younger and thinking that there was some need for me to pretend I understood everything. So much lost opportunity :P

Can't a mod mass-change a tag?

I thought that was a mod ability

Gypsy Spellweaver

3:58 AM

@BenI. Yes and no.

A mod can do a "stealth" change: Delete the question, make the change, undelete. That stops it from popping up on the home page. But to remove a tag requires an actual edit of the post. Once it's not in use the mod can kill the tag without the normal delay.

Here's one that didn't get done, and will be in the next cleanup weekend.

25

Q: Girl, you're a mess: [images] needs a makeover

This is a plea to add images to the tag-cleanup agenda. It was discussed tangentially in the comments on this meta question from over two years ago, but no firm plans were made to attack this massive (1,447 questions as of now) ambiguous tag. The first step would be to come to consensus on how t...

discussion status-planned tag-cleanup-request

Also, on most sites that have same age, they get cheeky in their tag proposals :)

Ben I.

Tag synonyms don't get rid of the offending tag and replace it with the synonym?

Gypsy Spellweaver

Not sure what happens on the back-end, if anything for such cases. I suspect, only, that it's a three step process. 1) edit all posts to change the tag to the proper one. 2) Kill the bad tag, then 3) create the syn.

Ben I.

I guess it makes sense to avoid the mass-change, because you would run into a lot of case-by-case issues

This question suddenly has no tags, or the new tag doesn't really make sense because the original tag choice was a poor one to begin with, etc, etc

Gypsy Spellweaver

In operation, once a syn is made, the new question user types the syn, and it auto completes and every thing, but when they submit, it's switched to the "right" tag. So the syn tag never shows on posts.

Ben I.

Ya, but that's only for new posts, correct?

Gypsy Spellweaver

4:09 AM

It can be tricky. :( Removing the [recovery] tag meant reading the post and deciding if it was [data-recovery] [file-recovery] or [system-restore]. Started with over 800, still have almost 500 tagged [recovery]

Correct, that's why I suspect the change requires total removal of the old tag before the syn can be created.

Having the syn tag actually server two purposes. 1) It does auto-correct into the proper tag, and 2) It prevents anyone from creating it as a new tag.

Incidentally, that last SU cleanup weekend was an initiation by fire for the newly-minted mod. And he did a bang-up job, in my opinion anyway.

Ben I.

I have to head off to bed. Thanks for all the info!

Gypsy Spellweaver

nn

I may be slow to reply, but always pingable

Itamar Green

4:32 AM

Well, that was an interesting transcript

Gypsy Spellweaver

You really think so?

Itamar Green

7:20 AM

yes...

since my last message, anyway...

wow. almost 10000 views on that hot question

Ben I.

10:54 AM

@TuringTux I keep approving the edits because they're better than what's there (which is nothing), but try not to focus in on obvious definitions. Try to focus on how these tags apply to CSE specifically. (Take a look at the Java tag blurb as an example)

TuringTux

@BenI Yeah, I noticed that I was drifting off into explaining obvious stuff.

Ben I.

Also, good morning @ItamarGreen :)

@TuringTux I've written more bad tag descriptions than good ones so far. SE has a long learning curve :)

I have to go for now. I'll be back in around an hour

thesecretmaster

11:31 AM

Good morning everyone

The queues are aways busier in the morning.

Itamar Green

11:46 AM

not for me... my mornings are only starting to be busy in the review queue

Ben I.

12:04 PM

@ItamarGreen and @thesecretmaster I recommend that only one of you handle the pass-by-reference pass-by-value low quality question, so that the user doesn't feel pummeled

Itamar Green

I'll delete my comment, as it is his question.

it's in low quality? I found it through first posts

Ben I.

Yeah, it is

It's also just a bad analogy... if you give me a reference to your array, I can change its contents. If I have your phone number, unless I'm hacking into you, all I can do is call you

My guess is that greeting a new user with a wall of criticisms is a way to make sure they never come back

Itamar Green

that is exactly why I asked the question about the help center in meta.

I can't just point users to How to Ask, if it's not filled with relevant information. It does help, but as you have said, it's better to have just one person helping in this case.

Ben I.

I agree

It will be better when we can fix that page

Itamar Green

@thesecretmaster do you think it's a good idea to point the new user to the How to Ask? If so I think you should add that in a comment.

Ben I.

12:11 PM

Raphael (mod from CS) pointed out that the idea of having a help chat room doesn't help with users who have too low of a score on the network - they can't enter chat rooms yet

Itamar Green

@BenI. well, from what I saw in other betas, mods pro tem take a while to get picked. But you're right.

Ben I.

But I still like the chat room idea in principle

Itamar Green

I felt a bit overwhelmed by the massive surge of users. Had to readjust myself ;)

@BenI. It's useful, but I feel that it won't be useful for very long. as the community grows, chat rooms tend to get very big and hard to track. So a chat room with such a broad scope will, eventually, be empty. But that's in a long, long time. I'd say when we have more digits in the user count ;)

TuringTux

1:12 PM

Hello

thesecretmaster

@BenI. What am I handling?

@TuringTux Hello

Ben I.

@thesecretmaster The low quality post user.

thesecretmaster

Oh, the phone number answer. Why would I refer them to the help center?

Ben I.

What is a good analogy for pass by value vs by reference?

TuringTux

@ItamarGreen I've removed my stupidity-driven comments (cseducators.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/120/…)

Ben I.

1:15 PM

I didn't say anything about the help center - I think Itamar only mentioned it to point out that it's not very useful yet

The user hasn't been back yet, so he hasn't seen your post.

I might change it to something like, "Welcome to cseducators. We're excited to have you here. This answer needs some work. Could you elaborate on why you feel it is a good analogy?"

TuringTux

@BenI This sounds nice to me.

Ben I.

@TuringTux Are you also a teacher?

TuringTux

@BenI I think you've already asked this yesterday :) No, I am not; I only like explaining computer sciene related things :)

Ben I.

Oh yes, so I did. Sorry about that. My memory is not what it once was.

Actually, it wasn't then, either ;-)

TuringTux

No problem :)

It's nice to be here in a community that is currently evolving.

A question: When are the pro-tempore moderators given their moderator powers? If I understood it correctly, there are no community elections yet but instead the CMs at Stack Exchange equip somebody with moderation privileges. Does anyone know when this is scheduled to happen?

thesecretmaster

1:26 PM

In a couple weeks?

I feel like this would be too broad, but I want to ask "What are the benefits of different ways of teaching front-end (e.g. Slide show, Live coding, Drawing on a blackboard, etc.)?" Do you all think it's too broad?

TuringTux

Could be made a community-wiki, faq-like question in my opinion.

Like those "What to do if my PC is infected with a virus" questions on Sec.SE or SU

thesecretmaster

Well, that's more of a dupe target, less faq and not what I'm going for.

Ben I.

@thesecretmaster I'm not really quite sure what the question is here.

You're asking, in principle, when are each of these tools the appropriate tool?

thesecretmaster

Yes, specifically for front end web development, because otherwise it's way too broad.

Ben I.

If you ignore front end web dev, you might ask a question just about the blackboard. Like, "now that we have projectors and an do live code demonstrations and powerpoints, what is the benefit of a blackboard in a CS classroom at all?"

That has the ring of an HNQ to me ;-)

TuringTux

1:31 PM

HNQ?

thesecretmaster

Hot network question

TuringTux

Ah.

Thanks.

thesecretmaster

I'll write it up

Ben I.

@thesecretmaster Nice!

TuringTux

Sounds also very good to me.

Ben I.

1:33 PM

@thesecretmaster What did you think about my suggestion for your comment?

15 mins ago, by Ben I.

I might change it to something like, "Welcome to cseducators. We're excited to have you here. This answer needs some work. Could you elaborate on why you feel it is a good analogy?"

thesecretmaster

Oh, I forgot about it. I can't edit now. I guess I'll delete and recomment.

Ben I.

The user hasn't been back yet, so he won't even see that you've done

:)

Should I vote to delete the answer, or wait for a while to see if Simon comes back today?

Itamar Green

which? the pass by one?

Ben I.

yeah

Itamar Green

I'm not sure... It has been 1+ hours, but this is a new user, and in a new site. Our standards are not known to new users, so we teach them those standards and our way of doing things. I think it's better to wait, in this case.

If Simon doesn't respond to comment for a long time (I'm not so sure how long, but I think 3-5 hours) then the answer should be deleted.

thesecretmaster

1:43 PM

I agree, wait. maybe bookmark it and come back in a couple days.

The answer isn't doing active harm, I see no reason to hurry it's deletion.

Itamar Green

currently we need active users. so a user that posts an answer, (furthermore, a low quality one) and then vanishes, is not very good for the site.

@thesecretmaster Agreed. I think we should wait.

thesecretmaster

I really don't know what to tag my blackboard question

"What concepts are best taught with blackboard"

Ben I.

If you're going for HNQ I would do something more like "Are chalkboards a waste of space in the classroom?"

It's a little click-baity

thesecretmaster

What I had was "When should I scrap my projector for a blackboard?"

Ben I.

That's not as click-baity, but still a great question

TuringTux

1:53 PM

I would click on both, I'd think.

thesecretmaster

Either way, what tags should I use?

I kinda want to make teaching-tools

TuringTux

Sounds cool... I'm just scrolling through the list of existing tags

There seem to be no tags that fit to your question.

Not even remotely, in my opinion.

Ben I.

Maybe lecture-tools? I am afraid that teaching-tools will devolve into a catchall for every kind of equipment.

Like, someone asks about how to present an idea on an arduino board, and because there's an arduino, it gets tagged teaching-tools

TuringTux

Another idea could be lecture-mediums

This would, again, narrow the possible usages a bit down. Could be good or bad, depending on what we want to fit

I think I'd retract my proposal. I'm not sure whether there is really a good reason for introducting "lecture mediums". lecture-tools seems better to me.

thesecretmaster

lecture-tools it is?

0

Q: When should I scrap my projector for a blackboard?

These days, we've got all this fancy, new-fangled technology. We've got live coding, we've got presentations, we've got remote desktop adapted for classroom use. There seems to be a tool for every teaching problem. But when should we ignore the KnowledgeInjector2000TM and instead use the good old...

lecture-tools

TuringTux

2:06 PM

Nice.

thesecretmaster

I took a bit of a fun tone, I hope that's not a problem

Ben I.

If a few people upvote it right away it will get to HNQ :)

I think that's preferable

thesecretmaster

+2 already

TuringTux

I think at this time you could easily guess who gave the upvotes ;)

I'm quite interested in the answers...

thesecretmaster

2:21 PM

I self-answered

Aurora0001

@BenI. This one? It might not be a great answer, but personally I think it is an attempt to answer, so therefore not worthy of deletion.

thesecretmaster

Shoot, have to fix my comment again. OP's going to be annoyed by my pinging

TuringTux

^_^

Itamar Green

@Aurora0001 immediate deletion? no. But if OP doesn't respond (in a reasonably long stretch of time) to a comment asking for more details, that's not so good. But still, we're waiting for OP's response and hopefully more details to 1) get an active user 2) get a good answer there.

Aurora0001

Let me put it this way: if it was flagged on my site, I would decline. Downvoting would be fair, but if the post is a valid attempt to answer the question, the general policy is not to delete them

thesecretmaster

2:27 PM

True, it could be valuable to someone. If it adds no value, then it should be deleted, otherwise simply DV (if you don't think it's useful)

Ben I.

@thesecretmaster OP won't be annoyed because OP hasn't logged back in yet, so they won't see any of that. ;-)

thesecretmaster

They'll have three pings though

Aurora0001

Nope

Ben I.

Oh, never mind - they have come back

Aurora0001

Inbox pings are deleted if the comment is deleted, as far as I know

Ben I.

2:29 PM

That is my understanding as well

thesecretmaster

I made HNQ

Itamar Green

@Aurora0001 They are.

good one

Ben I.

You did? I don't see it yet

Itamar Green

second page...

Ben I.

Oh yeah, there it is :)

TuringTux

2:32 PM

Cool. That was fast, I'm impressed :)

Itamar Green

@Aurora0001 I feel downvoting would (in the not-so-far-but-not-immediate future) happen.

thesecretmaster

takes bow

Itamar Green

@TuringTux well, it did get 3 answers in less than 15 minutes

TuringTux

Actually, I've encountered CSE.SE thorugh such a HNQ yesterday (it was @BenI.'s one about exams on paper or on the PC).

@ItamarGreen So this is the algorithm behing HNQ?

I didn't know that...

Itamar Green

One second, I think Aurora mentioned something about that before.

Aurora0001

2:34 PM

@ItamarGreen Well, ultimately it's up to everyone to vote how they like on a post, but I don't feel it's that bad. It does answer the question asked (an analogy), and it seems relatively straightforward, considering the main audience is CS Educators, who should already know the concept. Not to say it's a great answer, but I don't think it's really terrible either.

Yes. A question with no answers cannot become hot, and answers boost the 'hotness' rating (along with question score)

2

Itamar Green

message starred.

Aurora0001

70

Q: How do the "arbitrary hotness points" work on the new Stack Exchange home page?

I really like the new Stack Exchange home page, where certain questions from the Stack Exchange Network are presented, along with a hotness rating that is described as "arbitrary" in its tooltip. How do these arbitrary hotness points work?

support stackexchange.com hot-questions

Itamar Green

@Aurora0001 I agree. Just wondering aloud

Aurora0001

So am I ;)

Itamar Green

:P

I have been scouring the meta sites of so, so many sites in the network. Phew, some sure do have a lot of difficulties. It's interesting to see how they tackled those.

@Aurora0001 From the answer to the meta question it looks like we won't be getting too many HNQ soon. ("Succeeding questions from the same site are penalized by increasing amounts. So, the first question from SO in the list gets multiplied by 1.0, the second by 0.98, the third by 0.96, etc)")

Aurora0001

2:40 PM

But even so, that can be countered if the Q&A is good enough

Code Golf often has 5 or 10 HNQs at once, due to the nature of their site

Itamar Green

True. Still, it's interesting how all these things work.

TuringTux

@ItamarGreen I totally agree.

Ben I.

The more I reflect on it, I also think it's just a legitimately cool question that delves into some really intricate thinking about teaching.

It speaks well for our site, and the conversation that arises should be interesting to read

Itamar Green

Overall, I keep being amazed by how good we're doing thanks to the collective effort everyone is putting into this.

TuringTux

@ItamarGreen I have to star this one :)

Itamar Green

2:52 PM

:P

another avid user I think!

TuringTux

:)

Why does the CSE main site have this banner referring to meta below the site header? I haven't seen this on other sites (in beta) before.

Itamar Green

I suppose because it's very new.

TuringTux

Okay, I have to go now o/

See you!

Itamar Green

Bye :)

Hi Peter.

Peter

3:08 PM

Morning - nice comment on the game programming question

I did a quick clean-up, but I'm struggling with the word "must"

Itamar Green

cseducators.stackexchange.com/posts/734/revisions

Aurora0001

@ItamarGreen I wouldn't worry about personally identifiable information like age if the OP has chosen to put it in themselves

If they did it by accident, it's a good idea to remove it (and flag for a moderator to redact the information from the revision history)

But age doesn't really give much away, so no need to worry about things

Peter

I'd trust the OP here

Itamar Green

Oh. I see. So where's the border? Or is it up to whoever is editing?

Peter

H's got 265k on SO

He knows SE

I look to see if the OP is new or not to the site

If new, gently edit

If not, leave be

Itamar Green

3:16 PM

@Peter Thanks! I'll remember that.

Peter

Plus he links to his Twitter from his bio

He knows what he's doing

Itamar Green

Understood.

Gypsy Spellweaver

3:33 PM

Age isn't really PII anyway, How many people do you think took their first college CS course in 1998? Not even his age, exactly, just an assumed age range.

Itamar Green

Ok. You're right. and, as Peter said, if OP wants that there (and is not new to the site and to SE, which he isn't in this case), then there's no problem

Gypsy Spellweaver

@Peter Looks like keeping that one open, with some fixes, turned out to be a good idea after all.

23 hours ago, by Peter

Is this too broad? My gut says yes, but I'm not sure...

Gypsy Spellweaver

3:56 PM

What does it mean when a user is listed as "Unregistered" even though it lists them as a member. Deleted users don't have profile pages.

Peter

Not sure

Gypsy Spellweaver

I'm hoping he'll come back to see his answers. If not to accept.

Peter

5:06 PM

-3

Q: What would be a good first choice to teach game programming to beginners?

In my institution we are close to starting a new graduate level program for game development. However, this program will accept non-digital game designers or other non-experts (real architects who are into interactive design), too. Therefore, the programming course must cover inexperienced progra...

introductory-programming game-design

Reopen?

Ben I.

5:22 PM

Why the downvotes in addition to the close vote?

(I also voted reopen)

Aurora0001

Hmm, it's still a little broad, but answerable now.

I didn't downvote it, either; it seemed to be in good faith, and wasn't a terrible question, just not specific enough yet. Still, people are free to vote as they choose, I suppose.

Peter

Not sure - I just voted to close then voted to re-open

Gypsy Spellweaver

Looks passable now. Opened

Ben I.

The -3 was counteracted with a +3 :P

Is there a way to see who cast the open votes?

Peter

Not sure

Aurora0001

5:34 PM

@BenI. Only when the post is reopened

Ben I.

It has been

Aurora0001

Unless, of course, you cheat and become a moderator

Gypsy Spellweaver

I think a CV generates a down vote automatically

Not sure though

Aurora0001

@BenI. cseducators.stackexchange.com/posts/733/revisions

@GypsySpellweaver Nope

You can upvote and close if you really want

Gypsy Spellweaver

Ok, not sure on lots of the back end stuff, yet

Aurora0001

5:35 PM

You might be thinking of spam flags, @GypsySpellweaver.

Ben I.

We're all learning :)

Aurora0001

Spam flags add a downvote from the community user

Along with VLQ flags marked helpful

Lots of complicated rules and processes on SE ;)

Gypsy Spellweaver

SE seems to doing pretty good. May not know all their algorithms but they work.

Peter

5:47 PM

I'm pleased to see that we went from broad question -> close -> revision -> reopen in such a short time

Clearly have involved, active users

Itamar Green

yep

Henry WH Hack v2.0

@Aurora0001 I have to talk to you in private. Like off of SE.

Is that even correct in terms of grammar?

Ben I.

6:13 PM

(@TomOnTime I have a quick question for you, related to SE's NY office, but not to CSE specifically. If you see this, could you reach out to me?)

Itamar Green

We're approaching the 1000 users milestone in moderately medium sized steps :P

Ben I.

"moderately medium" :D

Itamar Green

alliteration at it's absolute finest ;)

I'm so glad I could answer that question (this one) with something that I taught my robotics team members how to use :P

Peter

Yep - Unity is a great recommendation

Itamar Green

I'm glad you agree.

It fits well with the fact that some of the students that the asker is asking about do interactive design. Unity brings them into programming, a bit. At the same time, programmers are exposed to designing. It's a win-win

Peter

6:22 PM

And thanks to the clarified question meets the needs of the OP

The recommendations of Scratch and Python, which I would have made, don't hold up in that context IMHO

Itamar Green

Yes, I'm very pleased he came back and made those edits. I think, if he'll be active, he'd be very valuable to the site.

Peter

Yep - he wasn't discouraged by the close

Itamar Green

Python, perhaps not. Scratch on the other hand incorporates design. albeit in a rather childish (in my opinion) way. But it's a great tool for teaching the basics.

Peter

True - Scratch can get complex

But if you're preparing for professional game dev, I don't think it truly works

Itamar Green

I think my first ever game was in scratch. I still have the code.

Peter

6:25 PM

beyond basic intro

Itamar Green

@Peter No, I don't think so either. Unity would be an ideal choice if you plan to be a professional game dev.

Peter

Precisely

thesecretmaster

@ItamarGreen Congrats on 1k

TuringTux

6:51 PM

Hi o/

Ben I.

Hola

Henry WH Hack v2.0

Greetings to Aurora0001's brother.

TuringTux

:)

Aurora0001

Ah, looks like they subtly changed the tag excerpt editing UI. It now actually says "(plain text only, no Markdown formatting)"

TuringTux

I knew there was something different when editing some tag excerpts today.

Seems like a useful enhancement in my eyes.

TomOnTime

7:01 PM

@BenI. Sure! Either ask here or email me at tlimoncelli@stackoverflow.com.

Ben I.

Thanks for reaching out! I will email you. :)

TomOnTime

Glad to help!

TuringTux

I've seen you made some (or at least one) more HNQs since I've left ;)

(cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/733/…)

Ben I.

7:33 PM

Nice edits, @Aurora0001 :)

Aurora0001

Thanks

TuringTux

Oh, you've capitalized the title of cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/590. Thank you very much, this has bugged me all day :)

Ben I.

Congrats on getting to 1000, Aurora!

Aurora0001

@BenI. Thanks. Managed to apply that capitalisation edit myself now (but no rep bonus :P)

That 'tests on paper' question is getting a bit too much now... 16 answers!

Gypsy Spellweaver

Then he ought to find the answer he needs.

Aurora0001

7:49 PM

I feel like it's becoming more anecdotes and opinions than useful answers. Most of the points have been repeated several times now, unfortunately.

Gypsy Spellweaver

Let the voting bubble the good ones to the top. SE at its finest

Itamar Green

@Aurora0001 great publicity for the site, though. Don't you think?

Aurora0001

Yeah, it does seem to have helped massively, although I think it might have pretty much run its course.

Itamar Green

@thesecretmaster thanks. I don't think I ever congratulated you on reaching 1k, so I'll congratulate you on reaching 1250 ;)

Ben I.

There's definitely a sense that activity has exploded, but our # of questions per day is still low

That might be, to some degree, in the nature of this site's topic. Lots of people feel like they can comment, but (especially in mid-June) not a lot of people have pressing questions.

TuringTux

8:01 PM

I've just dared to write an answer here:

0

A: Programming languages specifically designed for beginners

Greenfoot is an IDE for Java which was created for teaching purposes. It displays a graphical "world" (a two dimensonal rectangle with configurable background) in which "actors" can be created, deleted, react to user input and move. It is using Java and is therefore object-oriented, which could ...

What do you think of it?

TuringTux

8:13 PM

Okay, I think I'm leaving now. Goodbye and have a nice day!

Aurora0001

@TuringTux Before you go... Nice answer!

TuringTux

@Aurora0001 Thank you :)

I don't often answer questions on SE sites (or at least, not in the last time). I'm happy now :)

Ben I.

9:11 PM

I'm gonna head out. I make three retagging meta threads to replace the one I had prior. (Feel free to CV that one, folks - I won't be insulted - I CV'd it myself!)

I'm off to dinner with friends - I'll probably be back tonight, but if not then I will undoubtedly have a lot of catching up to do tomorrow. Later, wonderful people!

Gypsy Spellweaver

@BenI. I like the titles already :)

CS Educators Meta

10:27 PM

1

Q: Retagging: Comparisons, analogies, and examples, *oh my!*

Tag proposal number 1: Change teaching-analogy to examples, in line with matheducators Upvote if you agree, downvote if you disagree, or answer if there are additional considerations.

discussion retagging

1

Q: Retagging: Coding style? Conventions? Practices?

Tag proposal number 2: Merge code-style and coding-conventions into coding-style Upvote if you agree, downvote if you disagree, or answer if there are additional considerations.

discussion retagging

1

Q: Retagging: Getting the Group Together

Tag proposal number 3: Change group-assignment to group-work Upvote if you agree, downvote if you disagree, or answer if there are additional considerations.

discussion retagging

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