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Gayot Fow

03:20

2

I will be in London for a theatre trip on a Saturday in September and would like to visit a rooftop bar before the theatre for a drink/cocktail. Having looked at web sites for many of these bars, they would appear to be fully booked. Can anyone recommend a bar that I might be able to book for 4...

I have to make bookings sometimes for clients in my "day job", but who knows what a meaning of "a Saturday in September"

means.

Berwyn

04:16

There's more than one bar in London? And more than one Saturday in September too!?

hippietrail

06:51

0

Q: On the new(ish) [drugs] tag

I just noticed we now have a drugs tag and it's been added to quite a few questions. In the past we used to add such things as synonyms to the health tag. In particular we have [medicine] which is a synonym of [health]. We also have a history of subdividing topics as we grow to cover more specif...

discussion tagging tag-synonyms

Willeke

08:12

@Fiksdal, I just read your answer on sunflower seeds in India. I miss in the question and in the answer sunflower oil. Can you include that in your answer please?

Willeke

08:27

Ah, I see he is fine with sunflower oil, missed that in the comments.

Fiksdal

@Willeke Yeah, but it's very important, as sunflower oil is ubiquitous in India. So I'm gonna edit it into both the question and the answer.

Willeke

I have edited the 'just seeds, fine with oil' into the Q.

Fiksdal

@Willeke Just saw it, great :)

Willeke

:)

Good addition. +1, (forgot it the first time around.)

Fiksdal

08:47

@Willeke :)

Willeke

Do you think the Q being too broad? I know northern India is a huge area but I also feel that some foods are not usual in some continents.

Fiksdal

@Willeke I wasn't sure. I clicked "skip" first time around. I'm biased now that I've answered, but I voted leave open now.

It's true that the question is a bit broad, though. North Indian food includes a lot of different food. But I felt the question was answerable.

Willeke

You found the question answerable, which means to me that you found it within reason for being too broad.

snap

In case you do not know what snap means, it comes from an English (version of a) card game where two people show a card at the same time and if it is an identical card, you call snap.

In chats we use it for identical posts.

Fiksdal

Haha, wow :)

Mark Mayo

Any thoughts on a vlogging series for travel answers? It occured dto me today listening to a vlogger Shay Carl. But then been looking at current travel vloggers and they're all showing places and concerts and amazing beach videos, so wondering if answers to visas, plugs and schengen might be more suited to written form :/

Fiksdal

08:54

@MarkMayo Are you thinking of starting such a vlog yourself?

Mark Mayo

Maybe, but was just wondering whether it would work

no matter who was presenting, whether it's the right media format for such questions/answers.

Willeke

You can 'tell about your amazing travel to China' including the visa, electric problems and that kind of things.

Mark Mayo

Well more like if you look at the questions with 100,000 views

They're not necessarily the most interesting to answer on a video

but people clearly search for them

Fiksdal

Yeah

The reason they have such high view counts is because people come through google

Willeke

I like it in TV programs when they do not just show the beaches and the bars but also tell about the practical side of traveling, tell their staff member was send out to get tickets and how hard it was to get them (India) or that the boat would only visit three times a year, (Island in the south pacific.)

Fiksdal

08:57

It reminds me of some of my questions on Ask Ubuntu that have like 1 or 2 upvotes but suddenly I start getting badges from them due to very high view counts

People coming through Google

Mark Mayo

@Fiksdal yeah in the early days I had a question that spiked suddenly

couldn't work it out

turned out lifehacker had linked to it

Willeke

I do feel that you need a good travel story to draw the people in.

Mark Mayo

lifehacker.com/5950589/…

Fiksdal

I think it will be the same way with your vlog

People will google that problem you're talking about in the video, and then they will find your videos

Willeke

He did it very nice, your words and gives you the honours, and more than just a link.

Mark Mayo

08:59

true

Fiksdal

I'm not sure if you're gonna have a lot of regular readers who are interested in the paperwork, etc, of each destination. I am certainly not interested in such formalities for such a place unless I'm actually going there.

Mark Mayo

yeah it was a great link

hilariously a friend read the article and messaged me about it

I don't mind about the regular readers, I think the traffic would come from searches

Willeke

Without knowing it was you, (Mark Mayo) I mean.

Mark Mayo

then if it gets a following, I can start having vlogs on stories etc

Willeke

Mark, you are one of those of us who visited many countries, aren't you?

Fiksdal

09:01

@MarkMayo In that case, it's a great idea.

Mark Mayo

@Willeke if you count, yeah, I've been to a lot, but some of them I've not experienced as much as others :)

Fiksdal

@MarkMayo Yeah, mixing it up might work too.

Mark Mayo

74 by my count

Willeke

As I am on 28, I think that much. And when you draw a thin line on the map of Canada, along a ruler, you have covered more than I have actually seen there.

It means that you are likely to have many countries you can talk about, airport stories, visa needed, power cords not fitting, hostel and hotels to mention (if not by name than at least by category)

It next depends on whether you have it to present a video, talk into the camera or have enough shots to entertain while not in view.

Mark Mayo

Yeah I'm thinking more along the photo panning line while I talk, as I'm not the most interesting to stare at, I'm sure :)

Willeke

09:06

Have it subtitled, (or text fields) for easier understanding/getting the details.

Mark Mayo

good idea!

Willeke

Even if you just do the most important lines only.

Mark Mayo

could also link to the videos as answers on here, if decent, with a summary of the video, I suppose

Willeke

I was thinking about these lines: youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

He talks a lot, but gives the main points in text / pictures

I think you can.

Mark Mayo

Oh wow

This is cool

Talks too fast tho ;)

which I tend to do too

Willeke

09:09

You might even be able to 'write an answer as video' and post a link in a written version.

Mark Mayo

wow, the comments

Willeke

He is well known in some circles and have done a series of 'Europe' explained, holland/netherlands is also one.

I do not think I ever read the comments.

Mark Mayo

youtube comments really are the cesspool of the internet

Fiksdal

@MarkMayo Word, lol.

Willeke

With 34.631 I bet there is too many for him to keep clean and volunteers can only do so much.

I know a couple of people who will often flag on UT, but I bet most people just ignore.

As do I.

Mark Mayo

09:14

for sure, too much effort

Willeke

I am involved with a group of people who work together to keep Yahoo Answers (a bit) clean, which has taught me a lot of good habits. And when you find a series of spammers who spam UT links, you can get rid of a lot of nastyness by reporting the video.

Fiksdal

@Willeke Is YA user moderated at all?

Willeke

It is ONLY user moderated.

Oh, there are, according to rumor, some filters but everything that gets through has to be reported/flagged by users and those flags will drop content.

Fiksdal

So if enough people flag something, it will be deleted?

Willeke

You can appeal and when an appeal is granted, the person reporting will get it harder to drop other content.

Mostly I can drop content on my own, some things we need 2 or 3 people to flag.

Fiksdal

09:23

@Willeke Is there like a reputation system like on SE?

Willeke

I am careful only dropping spam and non-answers, nothing that can be seen as proper answers.

Fiksdal

On YA questions can be broad/opinion based without any problem, right?

Willeke

Points, and levels, been at the highest level since 18 months into the system, they are older than the SE sites, but the last few changes they have tried to copy SE system of working, but not done it well. Site is a mess with loads of spam on older questions and nobody able to police those.

Yes, anything that is a question is acceptable (unless chat or breaking laws like porn) many different categories. And anything that answers the questions is acceptable (with same limits.)

Fiksdal

@Willeke lol, doesn't sound to appealing.

Willeke

@MarkMayo, one topic for your vlog, chips in the UK sense of the word, Belgium/French fries and make a joke about your name with it,

@Fiksdal, can you see the answers I gave here: answers.yahoo.com/activity/…

I have so many it is hard to find some of the better ones. (They changed the site and now older content is hard to search for.)

Mark Mayo

09:30

Willeke

It would be a good first vlog entry to get your name well known (if you want to use the same name that is) and it might make a fun travel entry as it is a very widely eaten food. (Fries that is, Mayo less.)

In Dutch ask for 'patat met' (fries with) and you get mayo with the fries.

Mark Mayo

Ek verstand 'n klein bietjie

Willeke

South Afrikaans?

Mark Mayo

well, just Afrikaans, but yep :)

Willeke

Of course, south is not part of the name of the language.

@Fiksdal, Yahoo Answers also does not have rules against duplicate questions nor answers, and they even advised to ask several times spread over 24 hours to reach different users for more answers.

Fiksdal

09:37

@Willeke Haha, wow, they encourage duplicates :)

It sounds like YA is like SE but messy with no rules, insufficient moderation and less knowledgble users? :)

Willeke

There used to be so many questions each day that you could not read all of them, not even all in one category and most users would only read the last hour at most, specially in popular categories.

Some users are extremely knowledgeable, I have tried to get one specialist on immigration and public transport timetables to come here, but either he did not like it or got put off by being a new user with severe limitations.

Fiksdal

@Willeke Oh, ok.

Willeke

But there are many trolls as well, which is very hard to deal with.

Mark Mayo

we've had trolls here too, I think they're on every site ;)

Willeke

Yes, but here a troll will not get high level (say trusted user level) without ever writing one real answer, with insults in every other answer on average.

Mark Mayo

09:41

oh we've had some fairly high level trolls

Willeke

The one I am thinking has as most used line: Google it you moron'

You have to do more than just post one line non answers here to get rep.

Mark Mayo

lmgtfy.com - useful ;)

Fiksdal

@MarkMayo You mean the one who asked about the gold bar, bulletproof west and bazooka?

Mark Mayo

Oh I'm not going to caught naming any specifics ;)

Willeke

He is one I will not take serious anymore (if I ever did.)

But I have one or two more in my view.

Fiksdal

09:46

@MarkMayo Haha. Right. Yeah, you've been a mod for too long to fall for that, I guess.

Mark Mayo

OH.

MY.

GOODNESS.

Proposed extension to the I-94/ESTA forms is to require your social media IDs

federalregister.gov/articles/2016/06/23/2016-14848/…

"Collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide DHS greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections by providing an additional tool set which analysts and investigators may use to better analyze and investigate the case."

Fiksdal

@MarkMayo Wow.

Mark Mayo

ah, it'll be an optional field. Why would ANYONE complete that field....

Fiksdal

Haha.

Maybe if they have a super neat profile showing they're a super nice person.

Willeke

I am keeping a pretty clean profile and do not do facebook and such, but even I would not want an in depth search on what I have done on internet.

Fiksdal

09:58

Yeah.

I don't know why they bother, anyway.

Willeke

It will be more reason for people to come to us, for help.

Fiksdal

Awesome.

It's a great thing we're being paid here to help people.

Willeke

Paid in rep, you mean.

Mark Mayo

lol

Fiksdal

Well, I was actually being ironic.

Mark Mayo

10:01

To be fair, mods get sent 'swag' occasionally. But that's like a mug or tshirt.

Fiksdal

But yeah, I guess we are being paid in rep.... Which we can use for........ Helping more people.

Willeke

I would like to be paid in dollars/euros/pounds, I would even take bit coins if I could actually use them for buying things.

Rep, like points on Yahoo, are for bragging rights only.

Mark Mayo

that would be awesome, if they used the shares from the ad revenue to go to users who get repp

Willeke

Only right that mods are being send swag, it does take up a lot of time when done right, and if not doing it right you do not keep doing it long (here at least.)

Fiksdal

@MarkMayo IMO there should be a special, large TSE coffee mug given to users when they have 3583 rep.

Mark Mayo

10:03

coincidentally, is that your rep tally, by chance?

Fiksdal

@MarkMayo No way.

I think that if people were paid for rep, there would be much more people (especially from third world countries) starting rep mining, etc.

Willeke

@Fiksdal, I think you got a bit more rep recently than you did in the past.

Fiksdal

@Willeke Yeah, I've been pretty active the last few weeks.

Willeke

There have been Q &A sites paying for A, but as they were asking money for Q, they did not fare well.

Fiksdal

@MarkMayo There are people who sit and solve capthcas for a few dollars a day.

Willeke

10:05

I think Google tried one of those.

Mark Mayo

true

Fiksdal

People would probably try to find all kinds of weaknesses in the voting fraud system, etc.

Mark Mayo

then again

16 Sitese That Pay You to Answer Questions - wonder if any of these are worthwhile

Willeke

I have seen sites selling Yahoo accounts that had reached a given level, mostly one day work on eacy, which would pay the people almost nothing.

Fiksdal

@Willeke Yeah. Like a dollar, right?

Willeke

10:08

I guess a dollar would be well paid for them, hand full of rice, in the poorest parts of India, more likely.

One day worths of allowed activity, they have to do 100 to 1000 each day to make enough for food for the day, working for a company.

Fiksdal

Many people in India work for 1.5 USD a day

But there's also the cost of a computer and an internet conneciton

Willeke

And then some people like us come along and get all those accounts deleted before they can earn.

I think they got people to do it for getting access to a computer, which might be in a building owned by the company.

English not required, just copy and paste questions and answers.

You do not catch the ones who are smart about it, or not as easily.

@MarkMayo, did you notice that 16 sites that pay post is at least 5 years old? I have never heard about any of them. Most may have gone down the drain soon.

Mark Mayo

yeah, I just googled out of interest

/r/beermoney has many more up to date sites, if you're a reddit user

Willeke

I am not, but I am also not interested in the sites. Dreaming about earning for answers is different from acting upon it and I am not sure I will ever act.

I might write a book in the future, using all my answers on different sites, and how they are welcomed, to convince the publishers.

But that is mostly a dream as well.

Fiksdal

@Willeke Yeah, I know a guy who works in a photo shop for $1.50 a day. Most of his money just go to his food. He says he likes the job because it's not physically exerting and he gets to sit in an air conditioned room for free.

Willeke

10:18

I hope he has no costs for living, like renting a place to live or paying for upkeep.

Fiksdal

He stays with his parents for free.. He's in his twenties.

Willeke

They will not be around forever. But he might grow up into a responsible person one day.

Fiksdal

He may live there for the rest of his life... Huge family homes are common in India.

Willeke

@MarkMayo, good way to get Lifehacker a few more hits as well. :)

Mark Mayo

I got quite a bit back when flightfox was open to anyone
loved flight hunting
earned about US$1k, then they closed it and only kept the top few people :(

Fiksdal

10:26

@MarkMayo That sounds cool, why did they close it?

JonathanReez

10:45

Hostelworld removed their 'sort by rating' feature :(

any suggestions for a better Hostel aggregator?

same issue with Airbnb - impossible to sort by number of reviews and impossible to quickly see the bad reviews

@MarkMayo Facebook: secretelybinladen Instagram: JihadisOfStagram

Boom, instant capture

hippietrail

greetings humans et al!

JonathanReez

Hello Hippietrail. Which country are you at?

hippietrail

@JonathanReez: depends. are you chinese? (-:

JonathanReez

Taiwan? :)

hippietrail

bingo! (-:

Mark Mayo

10:49

@Fiksdal Todd and Lauren the cofounders went for a new business model

shrug

Fiksdal

Oh ok

hippietrail

i've noticed the sorting options were getting extremely standardized across all the bookings sites when looking for accom recently

personally as a stringer of shoes, i sort by price lowest to highest and then start reading the reviews. looking for universally disliked places and ignoring overly prissy reviewers.

JonathanReez

which website do you use?

for accommodation

I've been using Booking.com/Hostelworld for as long as I remember but they haven't added any useful features in ages

hippietrail

i look at hostelworld first but generally one or two others as well depending what shows up on a google search

i used booking.com for the first time on this trip - for the accom to reference in my chinese visa application

in europe i used to use hostelworld and hostelbookers with preference to the second as its prices worked out lower in general and sometimes there'd be some there with space left not listed on hostelworld. but that was before they merged.

did everyone who would be interested in such things take a look at my drugs tag discussion on meta?

Willeke

Been there, done that, did not get the T-shirt (yet)

hippietrail

11:01

how many sleeves and neck holes would you like?

Willeke

:))

Fiksdal

11:25

LMAO travel.stackexchange.com/a/77590/41775

Willeke

No laughing matter to me, get off the web before google get it kind of spam.

Fiksdal

Why does it take so long to get these posts deleted?

Willeke

@Fiksdal, that last edit you did, the tag Czech republic is right for the question, but researching the answer shows it is a much wider tradition.

Fiksdal

Oh, ok

Willeke

Why it takes so long? No people with enough power around.

Or if we have the powers, we do not know how to activate it.

Fiksdal

11:43

@Willeke What do you mean, how can we activate it?

Willeke

Sometimes in review you get the option of 'delete' but when you flag something, you do not seem to get it in review.

And I am still not familiar with the options of the tools I got at 10K

Fiksdal

I get "recommend deletion". I think if enough people recommend it, it gets deleted.

Yeah, the deletion privilege probably comes at 10 k

Willeke

I did not get the answer in review.

Fiksdal

Maybe when you flag it it disappears?

Willeke

that is what I expect which would make flagging the wrong thing to do. (But I checked before flagging and it was not in the review queue yet.)

Fiksdal

11:52

@Willeke Then maybe you should ask me or someone below 10k to flag and then you can delete :)

In the future, I mean, not now.

Willeke

Or just wait a bit longer (as most of those things get flagged soon enough) and see if they do get onto the review Q.

Fiksdal

Yeah.

They'll get deleted sooner or later anyway.

Willeke

If google gets them, the spammer is more likely get paid, and it is more likely to show up when people search for the subject, which will pay the spamming company.

Fiksdal

Right

But Google will de-index them again after deleting

Willeke

Not sure about this site, but you will get a lot of deleted information if you do search cashed information.

Fiksdal

12:05

0

Q: Do spammers actually get "google-juice" from posting links on SE?

I've spent some time in the review queue lately, and I've noticed that quite a few bots/spammers try and sneakily hide links in answers. Presumably they do this to boost the Google score of their website. However, assuming they succeed (IE the community doesn't spot their spam, and it gets to st...

support review hyperlinks spam

Nice, it has an answer now :)

hippietrail

post it on seo.se

Fiksdal

seo?

@hippietrail

hippietrail

search engine optimization

Fiksdal

@hippietrail Ah. Yeah, they may know very well.

@hippietrail Too late, though, I already have an answer, so I can't delete and re-post.

hippietrail

such artificial limits imposed on possibility!

Fiksdal

12:16

I may do some very sneaky double posting later. Hoping nobody notices. There's no system for closing cross-site dupes anyway :) @hippietrail

hippietrail

it used to be that you could ask two different versions of the same question written to fit each site

but i'm not sure if that now also comes under double-posting

i have a meta question on such thingies somewhere ...

Willeke

Adjust the question so it is not a duplicate anymore.

hippietrail

57

A: Build and strengthen the Stack Exchange community with "crossover questions" between sites

To build on Phil's great start, here is how I think it should work. Question is Asked A user on physics asks: How Do Bicycle Spokes Work? This is assigned a post ID of #94,0001 on physics. It is a physics question. Cross-site Users Show Interest hippietrail with accounts on both sites i...

and don't be surprised if it gets close as an "exact duplicate" even after adjusting d-:

Fiksdal

@hippietrail Yeah, it would be challenging to implement, but very cool if it worked

hippietrail

if only we had a team of professional software developers somewhere in new york ...

Fiksdal

12:19

Haha :)

So where would rep go if a question is on multiple sites?

hippietrail

i'm not in new york and i don't get paid d-;

Willeke

Both sites what you earn on either site.

Fiksdal

Haha, yeah.

There's also the issue with close votes, disagreeing on what's too broad, etc, differing site policies, tags, etc.

It would be super cool, but very complicated, too

hippietrail

if it were not complicated it would not require computers

Fiksdal

Yeah.

hippietrail

12:22

figuring out a way to do an expertsexchange site that worked was complicated but thanks to those new yorqians it came to be

Fiksdal

Maybe we should migrate all of SE to a system of paper mail cross correspondence.

hippietrail

a pinch of common sense a dash of beta code and a fistful of going back and redesigning

Willeke

And a big pot of people willing to take a dare and try it.

hippietrail

i hereby promote you to the position of Joel's boss!

Fiksdal

Everyone sends letters to the headquarters, and then they all glue it together there and sends answers, questions, votes, close votes, etc, back out in letters

hippietrail

12:24

don't forget the pigeons

Fiksdal

Ah, yeah, that would be awesome

hippietrail

maybe drone-pigeon hybrids

Willeke

Lets go a step more and use wax tablets.

Fiksdal

Or maybe all SE users could just move in together in a 1000 km2 hall where we yell at each other, discussing the questions.

hippietrail

wax tablets work best in the tropics

in other places it may be better to draw in the sand with a stick

beer hall is most appropriate type of hall

Willeke

12:31

You can write on the tables with spilled beer, and drink the stronger spirits.

hippietrail

we are not even in new york and yet such wondrous solutions do we devise!

Fiksdal

Yes. Shall we post it to the main Meta now? @hippietrail

hippietrail

ok but where's my beer?

Fiksdal

Actually, better you do it. I don't want to bleed away 100 rep :)

Ask SE to provide the beer.

hippietrail

12:46

beer reminds me of toilet. i may post from there ...

Fiksdal

You drink beer in the toilet?

hippietrail

13:08

i do something with it

Fiksdal