The Awkward Silence

What's Up?

@AJ I wrote another question for the low-rep users to answer :P

I had a bit of a rough weekend because of it too... I spent a lot of time milling stuff over in my head... :/

@Tinkeringbell Oh.

Q: How to find out how my father would like us to decide for him?

1

So, this weekend my mom and dad both signed some official paperwork, which my dad handed to me with a 'read it carefully please'. The paperwork gives me and my brothers the power to make decisions for our parents with regard to finances but also medical stuff when they can't make those decisions ...

conversations family difficult-people netherlands

Jesse Barnett

8:43 AM

@Tinkeringbell thats a pretty tough one to answer. I might write a frame-challenge answer if there are no good ones by tomorrow, somewhat think that he has pretty clearly expressed a will not to engage in conversations about that so instead of getting him to realise I think you need to find a guideline of what he wants in a different way. Have a few ideas, we will see if i ever write them :D

@JesseBarnett You can write one right now if you want. We need well written frame challenges here ;)

Jesse Barnett

headed home from work now and busy tonight :) but yeah we do

9:05 AM

@JesseBarnett Good :)

Enjoy your evening!

Q: How to tell an elder colleague that they are not superior to me?

9:16 AM

1

I've got a communication issue with my colleague, let's call her Alice. Alice seems to feel superior to me just because she is about 20 years older than me. We were hired for the same position, the only difference between us might be some years of working experience in another company which she h...

work-environment conflicts germany age

Not an answer?

@AJ Difficult...

It does give some advice on how to make dad realise it's important to talk about this...

ohh

Q: How do I politely tell my coworker he can do the work himself?

9:55 AM

1

My team, A, has set up everything for team B to work with. They can change texts, values, basic colors. The only thing they can't change is general layout or complicated styling. They can ask my team, team A for that. It so happens to be that my team fell apart last year and I am now 'unofficial...

work-environment saying-no

D.Hutchinson

... finished writing ... time for bed ...

have a great day, @Tinkeringbell :)

bye AJ :)

@D.Hutchinson Sleep well! :)

D.Hutchinson

Thanks, will do :)

@D.Hutchinson G'night

D.Hutchinson

g'nite :)

10:33 AM

Free flag: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/9708/… No longer needed, I edited the answer to emphasize it.

11:12 AM

Wow, it's been one whole year since this happened: meta.stackoverflow.com/q/342440/5832912

@NVZ Nice, some drama with my salad

@Tinkeringbell Count the number of times it was closed, reopened, locked, unlocked, rolled back, and you'll find eternal bliss.

@NVZ There's like 5 pages of revision history? WOW

11:29 AM

Seems like a neat invite:

There is Interpersonal Relations.SE, where I've seen similar questions. There might be people with more experience on these issues. — akraf Jan 26 at 9:47

@NVZ Meh...

We're Interpersonal Skills, which is a whole lot different ;)

Q: Upset by male classmates openly comparing female students according to physical appearance

@Tinkeringbell That wasn't the point. :P

238

I'm a female student studying computer science (CS). Some of the male CS students have given me a physical ranking compared to other female CS students, and it has me really upset, but I don’t know what to do about it. One of the students in particular enjoys telling me when he finds another gi...

academic-life gender harassment

@NVZ Okay... then let me say that I really don't want another question and comment shit storm here about whether or not something is harassment and thus requires Interpersonal Skills or the police.

I do not understand where that came from. Confused, I am.

@NVZ Just my personal wrath against such questions ;)

They do tend to explode :P

Academia is handling it just fine, why post another one on IPS?

11:34 AM

@Tinkeringbell You could just, you know, not visit such questions. :P

@NVZ Meh... Then I'll be quickly developing a confirmation bias that nothing is wrong with this site :P

@Tinkeringbell Who said anything about posting another one?

@NVZ The comment you posted is implying it

@Tinkeringbell You read too much into my msgs. I'm like one layer deep. There's nothing more to my msgs. lol

@NVZ Well... you said it was a neat invite, and I say I don't like it :P

If you really want to go one-layer deep

11:37 AM

@Tinkeringbell The invite, the wording of it, I was referring to, not the linked question. The wording, I like.

@NVZ I don't like the wording either. For reasons just pointed out :P

Alright.

Now I see how we missed context.

For one, most answerers here are already members of academia and workplace.

@NVZ I don't like the wording because it is calling our site Interpersonal Relationships instead of Skills.... there's a huge difference there.

@NVZ Of course, there's overlap between those sites and this one. But the wording that you liked is wrong

@Tinkeringbell But that can be ignored. The commenter has zero rep here. They are just recalling the site name.

That's what I said by "that's not the point" earlier.

@NVZ How? That comment is up for everyone to see, and think they can ask about relationships here instead of skills...

11:41 AM

@Tinkeringbell Oh, just assume it was written skills. Now look at the rest of it.

@NVZ I still don't get it. Do they want users from IPS to answer that question, or do they want the OP to cross-post to here?

It doesn't ask to migrate or cross post. It just lets the OP know we exist. Ignore the minor typo regarding "relationships". The commenter is not a regular here.

@NVZ So, we exist.. .yay! then what's the use of the comment?

@Tinkeringbell Letting people know we exist is part of SE life. I think you're new to this.

@NVZ Yeah, but what is the goal of letting people know we exist?

11:45 AM

@Tinkeringbell To attract new users.

Letting such OPs know we exist could do good in the long run. More readers of that question will know we exist. Maybe our next golden question comes from any such reader.

@Mithrandir And what should those new users do?

Stay away :D

Q: Let's design a community promotion ad!

5

Community promotion ads are small images shown in a site's sidebar to promote various related things - site blogs, events, and other Stack Exchange sites, to name a few. Only graduated sites (and a few beta sites) have them - so most betas don't. However, I'm not looking for us to host ads, but t...

discussion site-promotion

(kidding, kidding)

11:46 AM

@Tinkeringbell What is the goal of our existence as a site? To help people, innit?

Attracting new users means more content, and more content is good for the site.... at least in theory.

@Mithrandir Yay, more comment flags!

@NVZ So, what should we help the OP of that question with?

That message is abusing comments...

@Tinkeringbell If all the site cared for is to reduce flags and comments, sites wouldn't exist. Our priority is to attract more people, and of those we will filter out bad ones.

@Tinkeringbell I find your lack of faith disturbing. :P

flag-pls | NLN | How to tell an elder colleague that they are not superior to me?

@NVZ Hey, you asked for an opinion. Now you have mine. The comment is promoting the wrong site, isn't asking for clarification or suggesting improvements and thus isn't helpful to that question.

11:49 AM

@Tinkeringbell I know you are giving me your opinions. I am merely giving you mine in return.

@NVZ Where did I ask for that? :P

Q: Community Promotion Ads - 2018

@Tinkeringbell You didn't? Oh nooo

@Mithrandir What do you say we invite ppl to IPS?

Best opportunity.

3

It's almost February in 2018, which isn't supposed to be the proper time to cycle these, but for this year it'll be once again, so we'll be refreshing the Community Promotion Ads for this year now! What are Community Promotion Ads? Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements tha...

discussion community-ads

we should iron out our requirements for answers first

Any suggestions for the mini message?

@Mithrandir Things can be done in parallel.

@Mithrandir Rome wasn't built in a day, you know. ;)

Because if we do get a significant amount of new answers from new users, we should be able to enforce some requirements, and that's hard to do without established policies for what we actually need to enforce.

11:54 AM

@Tinkeringbell Hey, I forgot that you're not into Star Wars. The above comment was a quote by Darth Vader, in case you didn't notice.

@NVZ I noticed :P I do know a little star wars, I think I've watched a movie once :P

@NVZ But Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra was built in two and a half days. :P

I just ordered a book of star wars crochet patterns as well :) I'm going to make an r2-d2 soon, I like those :)

@Mithrandir Or, let's have answers first, then the ironing can happen more concretely.

@Tinkeringbell Parcel me this one.

11:55 AM

@NVZ Excuse me? My latest question got something like 18 answers.... You want even more?

@NVZ Why? Then we have bad content sticking around for even longer.

@AJ I might send you a picture soon ;)

@Tinkeringbell Mine has the highest number of answers. Period.

@Mithrandir That's glass half empty, young padawan.

...that's kinda irrelevant, no?

@Tinkeringbell Not only picture. That R2-D2 as well.

11:56 AM

@NVZ Yeah. So? I'm a mod, I have to focus on the moderation aspects as well :P

@AJ Are you going to pay the shipping costs? :P They're ridiculous, I think sending a parcel to India will easily cost 30 euros...

@Tinkeringbell Then come here and make me one if traveling is cheaper. ;)

I keep hearing this "we can't handle more comments and flags". Why? What is it with that level of pessimism? I say, have more content, more users, and more thriving community. Of those many users, we will find gems who would do a lot of community moderation to bring balance to the force.

what happened?

It's not that we can't handle it. It's that it would be easier to handle and less hassle if we have our policies ironed out before going on a new-user attractions spree, which, IMO the HNQ is doing enough of.

12:00 PM

@Mithrandir Policies are made based on content that lives, not before content is made.

Right. We have a heck of a lot of answers already.

And we're creating policies based on those.

Yes, exactly.

There is a featured meta post already.

Fine. I'm fighting a lost cause.

But we don't need to make a concerted effort to attract new users when a.) we're still deciding what constitutes a proper answer/question b.) we get a ton of new users already.

Have work to do, see you later.

12:03 PM

Alright.

12:16 PM

Hey Ash! How are you? you've been pretty quiet lately :)

@Ash o/

12:48 PM

a few delete-worthy answers here interpersonal.stackexchange.com/q/1556/31

doNeon

What?

done

And I'm trying to figure out if this is actually an answer or not.

1:58 PM

@sphennings sharp eye! :P

> Change enclose to disclose. Disclose means to reveal information. Enclose means to insert into a container.

I should not write questions before coffee :P

@Tinkeringbell It's an incredibly minor mistake.

@sphennings I know :P I just love that you took the time to explain it :)

Thank you :)

I don't think that anyone was mislead by it, and if you were thinking about a doctor hanging you a physical copy of your parent's medical history it would be enclosed in a folder.

@sphennings I think at this time and age they might send you digital copy ;)

@Tinkeringbell Which would be enclosed in an email.

2:11 PM

@sphennings hahaha :) Okay, you win ;)

I actually don't know why I wrote enclosed instead of disclosed ;) I can't remember having such thoughts :)

(I'm a bit disappointed at low attention my question is getting :( ) Not that much views....

can't win 'em all

It's Monday, activity is still picking up from the weekend.

@sphennings Yeah, I should have asked tomorrow :P

@JAD Nope. But I thought this would be relateable to more people. Right now, I'm getting a lot of answers explaining why people wouldn't like to discuss this. I haven't had anyone step up and tell me 'I had such a conversation, here's what we did'...

Hello, world!

@TheTinyMan syntax error on line 1

2:15 PM

@Tinkeringbell ?

@JAD Isn't it System.out.println("Hello, world!"); ?

@Tinkeringbell //Hello, world!

@Tinkeringbell I don't use those peasant languages.

@TheTinyMan hahaha, that's also a way to fix it :P

@Tinkeringbell If it compiles, that means it's working, right? :-D

@TheTinyMan Uhmmm... not necessarily? I just fixed stuff that does compile but doesn't work :P

2:17 PM

#include<cstdio>
main(){puts("Hello, World!");}

@Tinkeringbell I forgot my <sarcasm> tags again! D:

@TheTinyMan Hahaha ;)

or as it's done in ArnoldC:

IT'S SHOWTIME TALK TO THE HAND "Hello, World!" YOU HAVE BEEN TERMINATED

@JAD LOL

Didn't know that one yet :)

Or in Java:

enum H{H;{System.out.print("Hello, World!");System.exit(0);}}

2:24 PM

@JAD ... what?? What is the scope of that call? O.o

13

A: "Hello, World!"

Java, 61 bytes enum H{H;{System.out.print("Hello, World!");System.exit(0);}} This is valid in both Java 5 and Java 6. This won't work in Java 4 or earlier (because enum didn't exist) and will not work in Java 7 or after (because the bypass[1] was "fixed"). enum H { ...

seems like some magic with constructors

@JAD Sigh. I wish that enums were "basically classes" in C#.

2:41 PM

morning

@Magisch Hiya!

@Magisch Liar...

How did the presentation go?

@Tinkeringbell aced it

Overall 93% or flat A for the entire apprenticeship

@Magisch Nice! Congratulations! :)

@Magisch Nice! Congrats!

2:45 PM

Sooo... how many back-up options did you need to use? ;)

none

@Magisch :D Nice....

better to have and not need then not to have

Morning folks, did I miss anything good this past weekend?

@apaul Probably not :P I slept bad, see the latest question. I kept fretting about it and then I don't sleep well...

I hate responsibility. :P

How was the burn?

@Magisch Exactly. Especially if it makes you more relaxed... :)

(But for me, not having to use a back-up would also be a sigh of relief)

2:54 PM

@Tinkeringbell hmm, keep doing what you usually do. There is a reason they gave you that responsibility after all

@Tinkeringbell Latest question?

Q: How to find out how my father would like us to decide for him with regard to medical treatment?

14

So, this weekend my mom and dad both signed some official paperwork, which my dad handed to me with a 'read it carefully please'. The paperwork gives me and my brothers the power to make decisions for our parents with regard to finances but also medical stuff when they can't make those decisions ...

conversations family difficult-people netherlands

@JAD Hmmm... I'm not convinced that that would mean I'd be honoring my father's wishes...

That link is very interesting, it mentions something about 'pick someone comfortable with following your decisions'...

> We don't know why he doesn't want to talk about it, only that he seems to loathe the subject.

so maybe he just wants you (plural) to decide for him?

@Tinkeringbell Sounds like he worked out power of attorney, but needs a living will.

@Tinkeringbell The Burn was an adventure. Kinda hard to describe it... I don't think I've ever felt so free.

3:12 PM

@Tinkeringbell I am not a member of that SE site, so I'm going to 'answer' here. I think that you can find the answers to your question by not asking them directly. The first step is to find out not the answers to the medical-related questions but what your father actually desires in his life. Is it the ability to do certain activities, or just having the presence of his family, or being a regular part of some community, or absence of pain, or to help some people, and how much of each of these?

@JAD would be nice if I can get that out of him then, since the document mentioned respecting his wishes

But not that it was his wish we decided

@apaul sounds good :)

@Tinkeringbell maybe his wishes are just being able to forget about it and let you handle things?

Notice that if you knew the answer to the question about desires, it sort of tells you the answer to how he is likely to choose (if ever forced to) between prolonging life and enjoying life and helping others' lives, and at what costs.

@user21820 I think that'd be a good answer tbh

basically, know how to think for him, instead of getting his answers directly. Chances are, when time comes, the question will be way different

@JAD Correct. That's in my second step.

The second step is to try to build for yourself a mental framework consistent with his desires for making medical-related choices, still without asking him directly. In many such questions, the answer can be sort of deduced. When you cannot deduce what he is likely to choose, it suggests that you don't really know enough about his desires (and also moral principles).

Remember that if you wish to be able to help him choose on his behalf, then you really need to build such a framework that is as accurate as possible.

3:21 PM

lovely, just like building a neural network

The third step is to wait until the time is right to bring the topic up again with your father, still not to ask him for his answers to the medical questions, but to tell him (if you do) that you truly want to be able to choose for him if you need to, and tell him what you believe would be his preferences in various common scenarios, and ask whether you got his preference wrong in any of them.

The fourth step (which hopefully never comes) is to actually follow this framework to the best of your ability (and within reason) if the situation arises, and not deferring to your personal viewpoints unless it strongly conflicts with your own morality, in which case it would be best to discuss openly with your siblings.

@Tinkeringbell: If you want me to clarify any point, I'd be glad to. Hope it helps you! =)

Oh I forgot a very important fifth step. Never blame yourself for any decision you make when you did not at the point of decision intend to allow harm to come to innocent people, even if you later see in hindsight that a different decision would likely have a better outcome. This could be part of why you (and perhaps your father too) are quite stressed by such a medical directive.

It is true that you are responsible to try to deal with any consequences of your past decisions, but you should not hold yourself responsible for any choices that you could not reasonably have foreseen at the time to be a mistake, and neither should you let anyone attempt to make you guilty.

3:41 PM

Reopen please: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/9696/…

@apaul still too broad without culture tag

@AnneDaunted Is it really?

You mean that's the same, regardless where you are located?

in the whole wide world

@apaul There's also still 2 questions there: How to ask out, and how to find out if they're interested...

@AnneDaunted Nah, but I think it's fair to assume that it isn't a huge factor. If it was it likely would have been mentioned.

3:45 PM

So just because we don't know, let's assume it's fine

@Tinkeringbell Two closely related questions... One seemingly used to specify the other.

@apaul Well, I think it's best to edit the title anyways :P

Just so that focuses on finding out/asking whether they are interested as well.. otherwise the OP will get crap for 'randomly asking people out'.

@AnneDaunted Well... If they lived in a dangerously oppressive place I'd think that they would have mentioned it.

@user21820 Please make an account (even if it's an anonymous one :P) And write down that answer to the question as well.. it's one of the best I've read so far ;) But given that my dad often discusses nothing more than the weather and some funny things that happened at his work, how would I go about finding out his desires for life?

@apaul If you think that's suffiecient, go ahead. You could, for sure, also just ask the OP and wait for their answer. Or you could simply wait for the OP to answer that comment.

Q: How to deal with banning my roommates significant other from our apartment because of their violent abusive relationship?

3:50 PM

0

For context I live with 4 roommates in an apartment, we are all in our early 20's. We are all friends from college, having graduated a few years ago, and have been living together for about two months now. One of our roommates has been in a relationship for about a year, and their significant o...

relationships awkward-situations roommates

@Tinkeringbell Alright. Give me a few minutes. I'll expand a bit to answer the question you just raised.

The above question appears to be too broad or even off topic (legal advise).

4

Q: How to remember names?

I am "working" in the local library team (about 20 members). I don't know why but it is very difficult for me to remember the names of the other members, even though I know some of them for more than 6 years now. We don't meet very often (every two months) and it is a big problem for me to reme...

greetings

this is off topic

@apaul back in December they lived in Austria.

@AnneDaunted Nice find! I've edited the title to match the body, and voted to reopen it was well.

I don't understand: We technically don't allow hypothetical questions - so hypothetical questions are fine as long as they hide that fact?

so we just ban the word, not the type of questions?

also I don't think that this old meta question is proof enough

take the farting question for example, it was hypothetical yet this was not the reason it was closed

@AnneDaunted It looks to be someone asking because they're questioning their own sexuality, not just asking to ask.

4:03 PM

@apaul That, and I think the situation here isn't as hypothetical (bad) as some of the other things I've seen around here...

Oh sure, there might be more reasons to close a question...

Basically, I take into account whether an OP can clarify the situation to include enough detail to take it from hypothetical to a very possible real-life situation. I think this one is a bit broad, but very well answerable and it may provide some valuable insight to a lot of people ...

There can be more things wrong with a question than 1 ;)

@AnneDaunted I'm curious why? Is it because it mentions 'not this early in the beta'?

Q: How to handle someone's getting angry over things I have no obligation to?

because it's old and has been viewed by a handful of people

more convincing might be

0

A continuation from Should I help pay for a traffic ticket someone got while helping me?. Despite what people answer in that thread "You are not obliged to pay the ticket", there's a chance he will be upset and demand payment. Because he's a brother-in-law, I wouldn't want to ruin my relation wi...

family money netherlands

@AnneDaunted Oh okay :) I thought you disagreed with the 'hypothetical' thing entirely, but from what I understand now, it's more about the example I used? :)

@Tinkeringbell "Basically, I take into account whether an OP can clarify the situation to include enough detail to take it from hypothetical to a very possible real-life situation." Because the OP has so far been extraordinarily helpful?

@apaul questioning one's own sexuality is in itself off topic and also won't be of much help describing a detailed RL situation

@AnneDaunted They haven't been very helpful I think... that's true...

@apaul you missed the OP's comment about phrasing it in a way homosexuals understand it

4:11 PM

(Sadly, I can't retract reopen votes)...

in The Closet, 21 hours ago, by IPS Comment Bot

@RoryAlsop First one, how can I "identify" homosexuals or phrase my question so that a homosexual would understand it. — Serafina Reisinger 1 min ago

@AnneDaunted What? Since when?

@apaul I think part of that is that the OP can't tell us anything about the person they're planning to ask out.

Which was part of my comment asking for clarification as well...

@apaul would be an intrapersonal problem, not an interpersonal one, don't you think?

@apaul Whether they're questioning their sexuality or not doesn't really change the question of "How do I ask if someone is into girls/wants to date girls?"

4:14 PM

Last I heard the context is just context... It doesn't necessarily make something off topic.

Thanks, Mithrandir

@apaul I don't deny it. It doesn't necessarily make something on topic either

I think removing the "I'm questioning my sexuality" paragraph would improve the question.

@sphennings I think it makes a pretty big difference. It's the difference between "I want to know, just because..." And "I want to know because I want to ask this person on a date"

Doesn't change the core of the question, just how people feel about it

@apaul True. My answer attempts to address that distinction.

4:19 PM

@AnneDaunted Context matters, and changes questions and answers considerably on this site.

@apaul For sure, you can interpret into questions whatever you want

Q: Neighbors have loud doorstep exchanges in middle of the night

0

I have never met my neighbors, but I have been woken up by them many times as they talk loudly at their doorstep, laughing, sometimes a dog barking with them, usually around 2 AM. My house is a bit closer to the street then theirs, with only a narrow gap between them, so that my bedroom window is...

united-states neighbors

OK, y'all - Thoughts on the quarterly award thing? I'm concerned that it's sort of a waste of time. Is there a way we could make it better or should we can it?

4:34 PM

@Catija how about allowing self-nominations?

Like on M&TV?

No.

Then the only posts that will get nominated are the people who actually use meta. That causes insularity and the point is to recognize the effort of users, not to get people to agree with you that your post is good.

Okay, then I am out of ideas. :/

Might come up with something later.

Let me think.

@Catija On Worldbuilding we have a user who has done a lot of data mining of the site. For the month of December they made a lot of posts talking about the last year in data. This included recognizing things like which users got the most upvotes from questions, most upvotes from answers, to things like number of upvotes per 100 words.

@sphennings The problem is that the "best" answers often have nothing to do with total vote count.

If you remove the personal touch you can dig into the data and highlight the 5 most well received answers of the last quarter.

@Catija That's why you don't talk about it in terms of best.

We also didn't award prizes for any of these metrics. It was just, "Hey look at this data. Isn't it cool!"

A: How to find out how my father would like us to decide for him with regard to medical treatment?

4:43 PM

@Tinkeringbell I've just posted an answer containing more or less what I've said here. I also added some more direct questions that may be helpful to some people. You can try adapting them to suit your situation, or just avoiding them if you deem them too direct (like if you think they may arouse suspicion as to why you suddenly ask this sort of question).

0

Here is my personal viewpoint, which I hope is helpful to you and anyone else facing a similar issue. I think that you can find the answers to your question by not asking them directly. The first step is to find out not the answers to the medical-related questions but what your father actually d...

@Catija This bit of data analysis compared which users are the most awesome in units of one of our moderators.

@sphennings But the entire point of this is to reward answers. We get such a high volume of them here, I personally have no interest in doing this and I have no ability to do any sort of data crunching.

@user21820 Thank you! :)

@Catija I don't think there is a way to reward good answers without the problems you have listed.

@Catija Maybe just get people to award more bounties naturally? I try not to get too attached to my imaginary internet points :)

No idea how to get done though, it requires a change of ... Lifestyle?

4:53 PM

@Tinkeringbell I don't really care about whether people are awarding bounties. I only started the contest because English Student was pestering about it and I knew it was going to fail... so now it's failed and I'm just trying to see if anything can be done or if we just bury it.

@Catija The high volume is indeed one of the problems. It would cost a lot of time to reread the ones I already read during that time frame.

I'm all for letting the quarterly thing die...

I know personally there isn't much correlation between the answers of mine that I'm particularly proud of and the answers that are well received.

So why not let English Student do it himself?

@AnneDaunted That's why Monica's suggestion was to post the "collections" phase but tell people not to vote until the end of the quarter... that's what they do on Judaism.

4:54 PM

@AnneDaunted yeah, why not?

Ask him... he seems to want some sort of community buy-in but ... it's not happening.

I just thought I'd give it a try and look at anongoodnurse's answers - even this is too much, let alone those of other users

I also do not really know what kind of criteria to use. Depends too much on the question

And so it also seems kind of unfair to pick out only one

@Tinkeringbell You're welcome! I actually don't come to this chat-room often, so if you want to find me in chat next time you are welcome to the Logic chat-room. =)

Logic - nothing could be farther away from IPS ;-)

@Catija I'd rather not. Just award the bounties, announce that there was too little participating and that we'll look for a nice alternative

@AnneDaunted you'd be amazed how much things become logical after a while :P

2

4:59 PM

@Tinkeringbell Yes this! I try to remain true to my principles, and to do so I have to decide on what my principles are first, and what they logically entail. @AnneDaunted =)

@AnneDaunted You can apply a large amount of logic to human interactions but you need to be cognizant that certain things are fundamentally illogical. You can't logic someone's phobia away but you can reason with that person about how to work around that phobia.

@user21820 Now I can say with confidence that we have nothing in common ;-)

@sphennings I agree. My comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek

@AnneDaunted Lol. You're (partly) joking, right?

If someone is deathly afraid of snakes it stands to reason that it's probably not a good idea to drape your pet snake over them.

@user21820 Yes, indeed.

I'm like Kirk, and you are Mr Spock.

5:02 PM

@sphennings That's logical too; in my opinion we ought to be kind to others, which is a logical consequence of wanting to preserve their emotional and mental well-being. =)

@AnneDaunted Haha! I read a bit about them, but don't follow the series. =)

@user21820 But is it logical to want to preserve that?

@user21820 I always refer to my phobia of heights as a phobia of falling. Much more logical :P

@user21820 I generally think of it in the inverse. We want to preserve someone's emotional well-being so we should be kind to them.

@Tinkeringbell There's only one post that's been put up and I think it only has like 3 votes.

Just give that one the first prize and be done with it;) to prevent complaining later ;)

5:06 PM

@AnneDaunted Yes. =)

@user21820 why? are you saying morality has a logical foundation?

@AnneDaunted To a certain extent, yes, in my opinion. Remember that we cannot deduce anything from nothing. Any logic system we design comes with inference rules and axioms, and those form part of the assumptions. If we accept all of them as meaningful, then we are forced to accept what we can deduce in the logic system as equally meaningful. So the question is whether we can design a logic system that we accept as meaningful and that also says something about morality.

@AnneDaunted You too are welcome to the Logic room, where in fact we have discussed this very question before!

Some people will reject some of the assumptions I make in my logical arguments about morality. But I think it is very persuasive. If you are interested, let me know. I need to go off now but I will be glad to share what I think another time!

@user21820 What do you mean by logical foundation? Do you mean constructed from logic, or strives to be self consistent (logical in the colloquial sense)?

@user21820 Thanks for the invitation! Looks like an interesting work in progress. Although I guess that at least the If we accept all of them as meaningful part will prove the stumbling stone.

6:00 PM

@Catija @HDE226868 Should we get/start a community ads post like other sites? That can help us promote our site and use those ad images we once asked from community.

HDE 226868

@AJ Only graduated sites get to host their own community ads. We could submit an ad to the posts on other sites, though.

Just checking @HDE @Cat @AJ @Tink - you're fine with having the bot post magic comments and regex detections here?

HDE 226868

@Mithrandir I'm fine with it.

(But I'd wait for the others)

6:30 PM

@Mithrandir I'd be OK with it but I'm not quite sure what to expect at this point, so I may retract my decision if it's too annoying.

The Bangles - Manic Monday

do we need to promote IPS when every second question hits HNQ?

►

Hello folks! I've been running a little bot at @Mithrandir's request that tracks comments on IPS. Mith's asked me to start having the bot post comments that match certain criteria in here, so I'm just going to start the bot. Also, if the bot is being stoopoid, it turns on/off with !!/on or !!/off. Please ping me with any questions/comments/concerns/anger/sadness/screaming/etc.

5

!!/on ips

@IPSCommentBot Welcome to the Awkward Silence!

6:46 PM

Oh, also, I need a Room Owner to add it to the write access list (I don't want to abuse my mod powers).

does he (or is it a she?) answer questions?

Nope, just posts comments.

Room owner may be Catija

Hmmm...

do you think the bot will become sentient any day?

6:48 PM

Where did it go? I don't see it in the users list. It was in there a minute ago.

just a bathroom break, probably

I just turned it off for a sec because it was trying really hard to post a message, but was failing miserably. It's back.

@AnneDaunted I thought ES is a she.

@thesecretmaster I gave it explicit write access :D

Thanks!

!!/on

IPS Comment Bot

6:51 PM

Turning on...

@NVZ ES?

@Mithrandir Regex match or magic comment or both?

@AnneDaunted English student.

Is there a rate limit on the IPS bot?

@thesecretmaster both

@NVZ I'm not sure I understand

6:53 PM

!!/notify ips magic on

IPS Comment Bot

I will notify you on a magic_comment

!!/notify ips regex on

IPS Comment Bot

I will notify you on a regex_match

@NVZ It's subject to the normal chat rate limits (can't post too many messages in too short a time span), but beyond that it just scans the site for new comments every 60 seconds.

@thesecretmaster Is the source to this bot available? I'd love to see how it's been implemented.

6:55 PM

Yeah, sure. It's at github.com/izwick-schachter/ips-comment-bot

@AnneDaunted What part? I said I thought English Student was a she, not a he. Nevermind.

@sphennings Feel free to ping me with any questions you've got, I'd be happy to explain how I did things.

@thesecretmaster Pinging you now. Can we name this BOT to something human-like?