Although I do have some worries about stuff like that being misused... @doppelgreener do you think RPG gets a lot of questions that are very unlikely and maybe even just written for lolz and giggles, that are purely hypothetical?
Do such questions hurt the opinions people have of your site?
@Tinkeringbell I do not think we do. We have had specific people who have done it regularly and it's always become obvious: they are incapable of providing the amount of detail we've required, then outright said so ("i can't answer these questions! i just made it up!"). We've instructed them to stop, and they've either stopped or been suspended for constant low quality questions.
My boyfriend and I prepared for a hypothetical breakup when setting up our joined finances. We're a happy couple and hope we stay together for the rest of our lives, but we are prepared for this hypothetical situation. It happens, we have proof that people sometimes break up.
I think that the first point is by far the biggest. If the question is held to the same standards as any other question and passes, it should be allowed. Only in very extreme cases, the other points listed here kick in, i.e. "How can I respectfully tell Santa Claus that I want more presents this year?". For these cases, we need the additional points, but in general the first point should be the one in big fat font. — Cashbee38 secs ago
@Tinkeringbell Most roleplayers I know love asking hypothetical questions about weird edge cases of the rules that are almost impossible to encounter in a real game session. The rules do provide boundaries on how convoluted the scenarios can become though. With IPS the scope is enlarged to the totality of human interaction.
@Tinkeringbell It's sort of like on Worldbuilding how they don't allow questions like "In my world math works like it does in ours. what would people on my world consider the answer to 1+1?" While it's been packaged to be about worldbuilding it's really a math problem and is likely to be poorly received and closed.
@Belle-Sophie I'm a bit unsure the reasoning for adding point 4 to your criteria.
@sphennings I just removed it. I added it to avoid questions like "Suppose I have an aunt who really loves apple crumble and she always bakes apple crumble for me at christmas every year, but I hate the taste. My mum really wants me to eat a slice, though. Her husband just died and she's feeling really sad, so my mum wants me to make her happy by eating a slice..." Just ask that when you actually face that issue please.
@sphennings Currently you have people with the opinion that a question should show an effort to be about worldbuilding and people going around saying that every real world question is on-topic. It's a very weird situation, which is also why that is one of the apparently important things in this election.
@Belle-Sophie I don't see any reason why asking about a situation that has already been resolved shouldn't be ok. For instance after communication failure with my partners I ask myself what I could have done differently.
@sphennings If you would like to read some of the more-condensed stuff on this topic you can check out this policy proposal and the corresponding answers/comments
@Secespitus Kinda the same like the problems on IPS ;) Some people think that everything that involves an interaction should go, others are actually thinking in terms of 'skills' ;)
@Tinkeringbell what are these "skills" you speaketh of? I've never seen any of those defined anywhere, therefor I conclude they don't exist until proven otherwise!
@Imus skill: An ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to smoothly and adaptively carryout complex activities or job functions involving ideas (cognitive skills), things (technical skills), and/or people (interpersonal skills). See also competence.
It's been over a year since we've had a discussion about hypothetical questions. Back then, the site was in its infancy and we were still feeling things out. The top rated response to the original discussion on the topic even mentions how young the site is.
Should we allow hypothetical questio...
Let's see. The issues RPG handles well are: - I am experiencing this problem. (Concrete) - I am probably about to experience this problem, and need to know the answer for when I can handle it. Here is my situation. (Hypothetical) It doesn't handle well: - Here is a contrived situation I have never experienced nor am likely to experience. In order to present this problem I cannot reference anything concrete in my circumstances. What would happen in this situation? (Detached hypothetical, everyone asks for more detail and none of it can be provided.)
The further you move from the first type of hypothetical to the second, the less concrete detail you can provide. Somewhere along the continuum you are unable to provide a realistic concrete scenario and your question gets closed as unclear. But, also, people get frustrated with you because they don't want to wast their time on hypothetical nonsense when there's real problems to resolve.
Hello all, sorry to interrupt an active discussion, although this is related. I was thinking about asking a question on the site, but I was hoping to get some feedback first to make sure you don't find it too clickbaity or hypothetical. Could I pick your brains on it here, or is it better to go to Meta? (Context: I'm new to IPS, but not to SE in general)
Btw, I've looked at the Meta post on hypothetical questions, I think mine could work within that framework
@BarbalatsDilemma although, if you think it's a hypothetical question, you might want to wait 1 or 2 days until the aforementioned meta post was resolved
I think we'd also be OK with you making a post on meta saying "I'm thinking about asking this question, what do I need to change to make it a good fit for this site?"
> "What if I was teaching and a student went up and kicked me? What would I do?" commenter 1: "what kind of teacher are you? private or public?" asker: "public school" commenter 2: "ok, which district?" asker: "errr california?" commenter 1: "which grade?" asker: "let's say six" commenter 1: "what do you mean by let's say? do you teach sixth grade or not?" asker: "i'm a carpenter, i just want to know." [everyone gets frustrated, question is closed and downvoted]
We've recently been discussing creating a question sandbox. One of the important things is have people willing to request and receive feedback on hypothetical questions.
@BarbalatsDilemma There's nothing wrong with asking. It may takes us a bit to reach a conclusion depending on what you're thinking of asking. The only way to know is to ask us.
Ok, here's the question as I would imagine posting it:Recently, many videos have been making rounds on social media showing someone harassing a stranger, often for racially motivated reasons. When videos of these interactions are shared, a common response is "Come on, don't be bystanders!", etc. My question is, how can a bystander effectively intervene in this sort of scenario?
I can see reasons not to intervene, for example, the police are already involved, you fear for your own safety, or it seems the people interacting have an existing relationship (and therefore you don't have enough c…
@BarbalatsDilemma I wouldn't vote to close that as a hypothetical under my interpretation of current policy. it is rather broad. There are many forms of harassment. I'd probably vote to close this as too broad. Could you be more specific about the type of harassment you're looking to intervene with as a bystander.
@ElizB Thanks, that does have some similarities, however in that scenario the OP clearly feared for their safety as the harasser had already become violent
@sphennings Let's say, purely verbal harassement
@sphennings Ex. "Go back to your country" or some such thing
@BarbalatsDilemma Ahh, gotcha. From what i've seen, these come with angry gestures, I would be hard-pressed to not call that verbal and physical harassment, threatening body language, etc
That's rather broad. There's a big difference between a catcall shouted from a moving vehicle and someone getting in someone's face and yelling and hurling epithets and insults.
@BarbalatsDilemma I think it's the start to a great question for IPS. it's asking about an actual interpersonal skill, deescalation, but it could use one or two more details as sphennings pointed out.
@sphennings Ok, I'll further refine it. This was inspired by a video of a person on a bus shouting at other people on the bus. I.e. confined space, not easy to leave. It was sustained over minutes, not a passing comment
@BarbalatsDilemma Each person judges differently, I could interpret a wave of an arm or a finger up as VERY threatening and someone else could have different experiences, and wouldn't mind. That other person could consider that picking up some weapon is threatening.
@ElizB I totally understand! I'm a fairly big guy, so my threshold for feeling threatened would be very different from many other people. I don't think anyone should feel obligated to intervene in any scenario, especially if they don't feel safe
@sphennings Yeah that's a good point. I intend to look it up myself, I thought that getting some info from IPS would compliment that
@BarbalatsDilemma That could also be a useful adition. How a big assertive guy can act is obviously different to a small frail almost child-looking person
@BarbalatsDilemma I'm a small petite woman, so I get it as well. I consider someone walking towards me a threat if it's strange or in a menacing way, though the question here does talk about that. You never know the other person's intents until they voice it.
Imagine this: you're a male in their late twenties. It is dark and you're taking the shortest route to your home/car/llama. After sometime you realize that you have been following someone. To make it worse, the someone is a young woman walking alone. And she looks nervous because you have been fo...
Yeah that makes sense. I think it's similar enough that I should refrain from posting mine. I somehow missed it when I looked through the questions earlier. Thanks for all your feedback everyone!
I had an incident like this on a bus once, where two people were conversing in their (non-English) language and some kid behind me was scowling and growling out "speak English!". (Obviously too quiet for them to hear him, but he seemed to be working up the courage to say it loud enough as he said it over and over.)
So I told him to shut the hell up and stop being racist. :P
then his friend spoke up and told me not to be a smartass, and I told him to shut the hell up too, and that I wasn't being a smartass but his friend was being racist. (Neither one of them said another word for the rest of the bus trip.)
@BarbalatsDilemma I've had people stare at me and others when I converse in American Sign Language on public transportation or a restaurant. i give them a look of "whatcha looking at?" and usually that takes care of it
@TheRealLester Yeah, that's usually the case. If people are courageous enough, they'll tell us in very obvious ways they know one word... (usually a cuss word) hehe. There's also people who legitimately know how to communicate in ASL, and I am pleased at that more than people who wave their hands overly much and declare they know something. :P
@BarbalatsDilemma I know, a lot of people think we're talking about them :P Totally not the case. Unless they stare overly much, then i would mention something haha
@BarbalatsDilemma Satanic hand signaling? XD
@doppelgreener Same here, it's weird having several pairs of eyes on you
@doppelgreener or even better, people pretending not to look, but they're obviously looking
@ElizB Not all arcane masters or eldritch horrors have mouths to speak with, so if you want to get anywhere with them, you need to learn your satanic hand signals :D
@ElizB Yeah, I saw someone on Twitter recently asking people to at least learn the gesture for "toilet" and some other simple but day-to-day necessary interactions
In one of my childhood comics, Nick Knatterton (I don't know if it's an international comic), the main dude listens to loud music at home. Since he can't hear the telephone ring, he installed a special phone that produces a waving hand when it rings. I have always found that very funny, but how do you do it in real life, @ElizB ? (talking about a home telephone, not a mobile one)
I have a friend (a girl), who I met around 8 months ago. Since then, she has become my best friend and we are extremely close. Understandably, my wife is envious of the relationship and even sometimes suspects it is more than a platonic friendship (at least emotionally).
How can I convince her ...
@Cashbee Ooh thanks for asking that! I have a video relay system that basically is an interpreter in between me and the hearing person calling. What I have set up on my mobile phone is that it will vibrate and flash lights to ring, and at home there is a videophone camera with LED lights around it so it will flash when there is a call incoming.
ah, and back to the LED lights around your home phone.. are there lights in other rooms as well? or do you have to be in the correct room when the phone rings?
I attached basically a light-flashing tech thing and placed it in the bedroom, so i can see it either from the living room (open floor plan, it encompasses the kitchen and dining area as well, and the bedroom is the only place I cannot see the TV)
@cash there have been so many funny stories of people installing flashing lights for their doorbell, phone, alarms, etc that they get so dazed whenever something goes off haha
Soon, the new Code of Conduct will replace the Be Nice policy.
From what I read in the document, there are several points in the new text that are contrasting with the recently introduced "back-it-up policy", but more than the policy itself, the way it's currently enforced. Some relevant quotes ...
There's a friend of mine, let's call her... Rachel. We're very close (platonic) friends, and we'll frequently hang out as part of a larger group of mixed gender (including both my girlfriend and her boyfriend). We're all in our young 20's.
She has a habit of bad-mouthing people/gossiping a lot, ...
@Tinkeringbell hi, nice to see you here. I just wanted to reach out to thank you for the help you provided
I am trying to figure out if I can delete my account without damaging those I upvoted. But I probably can't because votes seem to vanish with account deletions, so I guess I will just avoid logging in in the future.
@AndreaLazzarotto You could still contact SE asking for post disassociation, just have your arguments ready when they do ask you to delete your account... And then ask them nicely ;)
Or do a preemptive strike and say why you'd rather not delete right away
@scohe001 I wanted to ask you about your response to my question, and not drag it out in the comments :) So, what would a warning before the "please stop's" look like, would that be a pre-pre-setting of the conditions of how I prefer our interactions to go? I could argue that I've given him plenty of words and time and "I feel" 's stuff for him to realize that.
@scohe001 That's what I thought, he's been warned plenty of times. When he bugged me over text about the stupid gaslighting facebook post (a few days before my wedding) I simply did not text back.
He actually texted my sister to text me to check if my phone was working XD
@Tinkeringbell I am not sure I understand what you mean. I'd rather delete my activity, not my upvotes. Upvotes are beneficial to other users. If my upvotes are deleted, these users are going to get damaged from a rep POV.
@scohe001 He was just asking about rehearsal time and whatnot. I would've answered him straight up and I don't know how that works between android and IOS
oh well. (shrugs) not a big deal. Okay, I think I'm satisfied with that. There's a lot buzzing in my head because i took a hiatus in counseling and now recently am getting back into it
and i'm seeing how much resentment I still have. Not the healthiest thing, i know.
I'm just happy that my mom gets it and I can go to her to vent, and she does her best to just provide wisdom and guidance, instead of encouraging hate.
My sisters are pretty much done with him too. My youngest puts up with him and has different techniques to "cool him down" when he gets flared up about something petty or stupid
or starts badmouthing my sister that's not in the best situation
@ElizB Mmm true. And from your comment it sounds like you have your husband there for you too. You're lucky to have so much love in your life, even if your dad can be crappy. Just don't let him spoil the rest of life for you :)
@scohe001 I honestly think it's just walking away slowly, or nodding her head and not responding...
@scohe001 Yeah, there's a lot of love around me, I am thankful of that. Even my dad's sisters are sad for him, because he chooses to push away or criticize people
@ElizB Yup, that sounds like your best bet. You just need to teach him that when you don't want to participate in a conversation you're going to shut down or walk away if he doesn't drop it/change subject
I have read somewhere "Never say never".
This is general question about any firm decision you take at any point of time. But in future, you have to change it due to change in situation. Change in the situation is genuine and important. When you first took the decision, there was no way to forese...
@scohe001, Yesterday @TheRealLester gave me a reddit link to a page for kids with narcissist parent(s) and I found a letter (in two parts) that sounds SO much like my dad, it's scary....
Yep. And since you only wrote 1 answer, IIRC, you can ask for that to be disassociated from your account. Then you'd have an empty account, with no questions/answers, but with a few votes/flags.
Or you could delete your account, or maybe even disconnect/hide it from your network account
if he's got a birthday or some thing, or if he's insisting I go visit him... so far, he hasnt talked at all since about mid-june, so probably 2 times a month is more accurate.
@AndreaLazzarotto Err... you can't really go deleting your post because it's upvoted, I believe. And I can't do it either, that'd be considered vandalism...
@Tinkeringbell yes, you are correct, I know I can't, I was just saying it might as well be... because it's worthless, so leaving it or not wouldn't be any different
I am not that great in English but it was just a hypothetical sentence :)
@AbhigyanC Huh? You mean if it really were too broad, but 3 out of 5 votes picked 'what should I do' it still would show it was closed for asking 'what should I do'? Yeah...
@Tinkeringbell actually, re-thinking about how people see the values of my contributions here, it would be much better if it were deleted. But whaterver.
@AbhigyanC It is, so we usually encourage people to look a little further than the vote that's already there. A post could e.g. be edited in the mean time, from asking 'what should I do' to being too broad or unclear for example. It'd be nice if the next close-votes reflected that, and the OP got some feedback in comments on what next to improve as well :)
@Imus Yep. You can put all sorts of stuff in queues, but if you don't point out to your fellow users why you think a post needs review and improvements, they might not even see the problem (and neither will the person that wrote the post)
@ElizB We're seeing my parents on average 1 time each month. It's just not practical to visit more often with everything we got going on (like planning a wedding ^^, ) and I have no issues with them at all ... so don't let it bother you that you don't see him that often. It's something he'll just have to get used to :)
@ElizB I don't remember your question and answers about it but I would expect the approach to be the same as handling an adolescent crying for attention ... ignore bad behaviour and reward positive things :)
@Imus Yup :) Y'know the feeling of being brave before you go face to face with someone that's intimidated you often, then when you're actually face to face with that person, you feel differently? Not so brave?
@imus seems to be a repeat pattern that i'm slowly getting over
I am an Indian citizen residing in India. I am exposed to quite a few regional/native languages, few of which I am fluent in. My preferred language for verbal communication is English at the office.
There are a few colleagues/peers who speak in regional language, most of the time, especially du...
Just as a side note: I naturally go a step further than staying neutral. I always start by assuming anyone I speak with has the right idea, and if they act negative towards me I first assume it's because they have trouble expressing their true intention. Not sure if other people are able to do the same but it makes me feel like I get along well with most people (even if they don't agree on that :p)
moslty cause I 'm not sure if deal is the word I was looking for in that sentence
I mean, they certainly aren't going to directly fix the situation. And I also don't mean how they themself cope with all the troubling situations they have to empathise with
@Imus I've acted as a "ventee" to some friends so i can only imagine what a professional does, I've just found my ways of de-stressing or working out whatever the friend is dealing with. (mostly drama on their end)
@imus I think "cope" would be a better word in that case.
I'm an undergraduate student that was offered a role researching for a grant. I was able to get authorship status on a paper and will be attending a conference for it later this year. The professor I am working for connected me with another student at a different university in order to share a ho...
Reminds me of a friend (/girlfriend?) I had at uni that had been raped as a teen. She was seeing psychiatrists to help her somehow live her life normally as far as that was still possible. At some point on one of her better days she visited me in my dorm and while we were talking/cuddling she explicitely told me: "you give me the feeling that you're helping me more than my psychiatrist does".
Biggest compliment I ever received in my life :) And made me wonder what exactly a psychiatrist does
I have been sexually abused while in college, more so psychologically than physical. I thought it was consensual but after a while it didn't feel right. So after that, my husband wanted to show me how much I should be loved, and be the therapy that other people couldn't do, because i wasn't intimate with them
Ofcourse, by getting her to be my (sorta?) girlfriend I got a lot closer to her than a neutral psychiatrist ever would, and that would explain why she felt that way ... but I still like it :p
@Imus That's really cool. Very intimate experience, that.
@Imus I am too. :P I've been wearing him down lately with this horrible cold that's steamrolled me... I'm recovering well now, thankfully. I can make my own tea tonight, and he won't have to fumble around hehehe
@ElizB If he's anything like me than just snuggling down near him and saying something like "thank you for being you" should give him enough energy to keep going :)
@Imus Yup, that's what i've been telling him, that i would be an absolute wreck without him just doing little things like making sure dishes are in the washer, laundry caught up, etc and on top of that making my tea
SE trusts you to have a good interaction with other sites and therefore get privileges in those sites, so you have encouragement to participate and gain more rep and knowledge!
I recently graduated from college, out of state from my hometown, and got a job here. A friend of mine and her husband offered to let me stay with them for very little rent until I could find a place of my own. They recently bought a house and had a lot of unexpected financial struggles this year...
@doppelgreener /reputation shows 183 results for (-1) and 3 for [-1]. That's 186 that haven't been deleted. There are about 800 more that have been deleted, I think.
I have a friend (a girl), who I met around 8 months ago. Since then, she has become my best friend and we are extremely close. Understandably, my wife is envious of the relationship and even sometimes suspects it is more than a platonic friendship (at least emotionally).
How can I convince her ...
It's been over a year since we've had a discussion about hypothetical questions. Back then, the site was in its infancy and we were still feeling things out. The top rated response to the original discussion on the topic even mentions how young the site is.
Should we allow hypothetical questio...
I am an Indian citizen residing in India. I am exposed to quite a few regional/native languages, few of which I am fluent in. My preferred language for verbal communication is English at the office.
There are a few colleagues/peers who speak in regional language, most of the time, especially du...
