Winter Bash! 2018 edition

David

05:00

@Catija every year. there is always hats for voting, so people vote more during the WB

Catija

I don't. I ... really really suck at voting. :P I'll probably get through WB without that hat.

Unless I really, really try.

David

@Catija me too. and that is part of my "thing" with the bash. In its ideal sense you get hats for normal activities you do across SE. Well the WB has kind of lost hold of that. There are many, if not most hats I would not get unless I were trying to get the hat. That is just one small step away from problems. Because even if the triggers are carefully crafted to avoid issues they are still creating abnormal behavior.

Ankit Sharma

@Catija lol

David

I have not thought of a good solution to this. I past years, maybe I was just having to much fun to see it as a problem. I hope it never is a problem. Yet the WB should not make users do things they normally would not do.

Ankit Sharma

I vote a lot so 150 was piece of cake

but 0 upvote is tough

Catija

05:09

@David That's part of the point, I think... a year or two ago I read something somewhere that explained part of the point of WB was to increase activity during the winter holidays because the sites tend to be pretty dead otherwise.

Ankit Sharma

specially in site I am active

CinCout

@Catija it's all about the traffic!!

David

@CinCout nah you heard pewdepie "its all about da ads"

CinCout

@David one automatically leads to the other ;)

Catija

@David I have mixed feelings about that... we create badges with the intention of fostering good behaviors. If someone goes to the effort of earning a badge in something, they should be picking up good habits. Yes, there are people who see "vote n times" and think "I'm just going to vote on everything I see every day without judging it just to get the badge"... but I don't think they're the norm. Voting, in general is good and something we want to encourage.

No, we don't want people voting just to vote but if a few pixels in the form of a hat gets them to consider voting a little bit more often, that's OK.

David

05:13

yah that's the idea. and why you all try to pick the least destructive triggers you can.

Catija

I love getting upvotes. It's... well, it's pretty much literally addictive, right... little burst of endorphins that tells you "you're wanted and needed and accepted".... It feels good, makes you feel like you belong.

2

There will always be people who find a way to ... game the system.

U9-Forward

@alecxe Thanks :-)

David

@Catija somehow it changes after a few years. You get to know that effort and quality does not equal rep.

Catija

Waffles is secret hat because we were trying to reduce the harm it does.

Mithrandir

@Catija Looking at the knitting showoff and hat showoff posts are a great way to accidentally burn through all of your votes for the day.

Catija

05:17

@U9-Forward I told you yesterday not to beg for votes.

U9-Forward

@Catija Okay, sorry :-)

David

@Catija I can spend (in one of my last cases) a few days on an answer and get I think 2 UVs. or just slap 4 sentences and a screen shot on to a "noob problem" and be a hero with UVs galore. So no I do not have the same feelings for UVs.

Catija

@David Still does it for me, I guess...

@David HAHAHA. Don't get me started on my "Are carrots dyed orange" answer.

David

link please.

Catija

@Mithrandir Yeah, and I've spent more on those in the last few days than I had voted in the month previously, I'll bet you.

Ankit Sharma

05:20

@Catija then why not focus more on positive hats

Catija

110

A: Are carrots dyed orange?

Probably not. Carrots naturally (or due to selective breeding) come in an extremely wide variety of colors from white to yellow to orange to red/pink to purple. It's likely that you were simply looking at two different varieties, one of which was more pale than the other. click image for sourc...

Mithrandir

@Catija Onion Knight > Waffles

Catija

@AnkitSharma Comments are positive. They're very useful. It's not like we've got another Hairboat's revenge this year or anything. :P

Ankit Sharma

@Catija 15 comment is too much

Catija

Really?

Ankit Sharma

05:22

and what is +5/-5, I suggested +3/-3 as joke which went too far I guess

@Catija One person making 15 commnet means that discussion shouldhave been moved to chat and never should have dragged that long

Catija

It's not 15 comments on one post...

Ankit Sharma

on question and answer combine as per speculative guess

David

@Catija there's a HNQ for you...

Catija

@AnkitSharma Oh, yeah... that's just wrong.

@David Yep.

Ankit Sharma

O.o

David

05:24

@Catija but it can be. and during the winter bash the easiest way is what is going to happen.

Ankit Sharma

and why no bounty hat lately @Catija

David

I mean how many posts have you ever really added 15 comments to?

CinCout

@David you shouldn't have to in the first place. Why else do you need the chat feature for?

Anonymous

@AnkitSharma Probably because bounty hats lead to bounty abuse, and bounties are abused enough as it is

Ankit Sharma

Mostly after 5/6 it goes to chat or I lost hope in the discussion going constructive

Catija

05:28

@David If someone really wanted the hat, they could find one of their own old posts, write 15 comments, get the hat, and then delete them all... zero harm done. But that's not required for the hat. Yes, when you go to extremes it's bad... but, as I said, anything can be made bad... that doesn't mean that the intended action is a poor choice of hat trigger.

Ankit Sharma

@Mego bounty can be used quite constructively too.

Catija

That's sort of my point... everything has a constructive and abusive side...

Ankit Sharma

Too easy to find a post which got less love or some question which need attention

U9-Forward

Still any Ideas on Clean-Up Duty, i am first checking on my question answer: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/377905/…

David

@U9-Forward sure I have lots of them, they all have been wrong...

Ankit Sharma

05:32

something to do with either re-tagging or edit

Nog Shine

It's mainly about retagging. I retagged 6-8 questions. I got it.

CinCout

@NogShine when you say re-tagging, does it involve adding new tags? Or replacing one with the other? Or simply removing irrelevant ones?

David

@NogShine what age questions? only touched the tag?

Nog Shine

@CinCout I did a mixture of both. I removed tags on some questions and added new ones on some.

@David 1 year old. I edited some new questions while editing them to proper shape.

U9-Forward

Guys, i earned the Clean-Up Duty, thanks to meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/377905/…

Feeds

06:43

-1

Q: Can I delete and recreate an account to obtain the Still Fresh hat?

The Still Fresh hat has the following trigger: be a user on the site for less than 6 months before Winter Bash, or join during Winter Bash; have earned at least 25 reputation Suppose I have an old account on a Stack Exchange site, so I don't qualify for this hat. Since the association bonus...

Derpy

08:21

morning.

Eran

Good morning

Derpy

Does waffle require 15 comments --on the same post--?

Eran

That's what they say (question + answers of that question)

U9-Forward

139

Q: Winter Bash 2018 Hat list

Here we go again the Winter Bash is here and the hats are listed below. The list has the same format as always, there are only two answers: one for the secret hats, and one for the regular hats. The secret hat list will be updated as we learn them. Only edit the secret hat answer with definitiv...

discussion winter-bash secret-hats winter-bash-2018

Fabby

@AnkitSharma Did it work???

U9-Forward

08:28

that's how you do it.

Fabby

In my case: did it... I know I talk too much.

U9-Forward

Guys, i earned the Clean-Up Duty, do ya know, see above chat...

Fabby

@U9-Forward Nice!

U9-Forward

@Fabby meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/377905/…

Fabby

@U9-Forward Yup, got that

:D

Work starting... Outta here!

U9-Forward

08:39

@Fabby Updated hat, refresh your page and see... :-)

Eran

08:51

@U9-Forward there you go

U9-Forward

@Eran Thanks so mmuch :-)

Eran

You're welcome

U9-Forward

@Eran :-)

@Eran Voted up your top SO answer :-)

Eran

That was unnecessary, but thanks

U9-Forward

@Eran lol, :D

CinCout

08:54

@U9-Forward so you got Clean Up Duty by handling review queues?

Mithrandir

Remember... vote for content, not people. Don't go voting for someone because they helped you with something unrelated.

CinCout

@Mithrandir +1

U9-Forward

@CinCout No, retag 15 or more questions to get that hat

Eran

I still have hopes for this question - meta.stackexchange.com/questions/320012/… - it needs to get to +4

CinCout

@U9-Forward I am sure I have retagged more than 15 questions already. Still no hat

U9-Forward

08:56

@CinCout Okay, then something like 35?

CinCout

@U9-Forward I don't have the exact count, but I have been retagging since the past 3 days now

U9-Forward

@CinCout let me see...

Eran

I think it doesn't have to be retagging. On SO I seemed to get it after retagging, but on MSE I got it without any retagging, just some edits.

U9-Forward

@CinCout You did 17, add 10 may get you the hat...

CinCout

@Eran I have been doing a lot of edits as well

@U9-Forward I counted 28!

U9-Forward

09:00

@CinCout amm... tag edits?

@CinCout and also start from December 11 to count tho...

CinCout

@U9-Forward yep. Some only tag edits. Others include tag edits along with correcting other part of the question. But yeah, tags were involved

@U9-Forward yep during WB itself

U9-Forward

@CinCout Actually, i counted your SO, maybe other sites will be closer.

CinCout

@U9-Forward I am referring to SO itself

U9-Forward

@CinCout You just got it you know?

CinCout

whoa

it's as if someone is reading the comments and then assigning the hat

:D

U9-Forward

09:04

@CinCout Lol, good for you, i just earned that hat few hours ago too :-)

CinCout

nice

U9-Forward

See my profile picture, refresh it... and see it, i added Sun Wukong from my hat, thanks to Eran to give me that hat :-)

Mithrandir

09:28

I think Clean-Up Duty is simply make 20 edits during WB

Ankit Sharma

@Fabby not from yesterday but I tried with 15 comments and got it

@U9-Forward did you break the secret up?

@Mithrandir 30 edit and no hat

And I am sure on scifi I didn't done 20 edit

CinCout

@Mithrandir looks like

Mithrandir

I've been editing tags and adding image descriptions, and I just got it on scifi.SE.

Derpy

10:03

@Mithrandir done 20 retagging edits on SharePoint, still no hat.

Mithrandir

we shall see

CalvT

@Mithrandir I've done over 20 old edits to try and get it, but no joy

Mithrandir

oh well

Ankit Sharma

Now You See Me 2?

Mithrandir

I'll try doing what I was doing on SFF on MSE and see if I get it there

Matthieu Brucher

10:13

Editing a certain amount of questiosn seem to do the trick.

Derpy

either there is some other arbitrary requirement for added annoyance (like - it only counts if you add at least one tag, question age and so on...) or... I don't know.

As I said did 20 edits, got nothing.

Mithrandir

Did you edit answers, or just questions?

Derpy

10:36

@Mithrandir questions - can't retag answers.

Mithrandir

right, but I doubt it has to do with specifically tag edits. we'll find out i guess

coder-croc

I'm one vote short for Sun Wukong... :(

Derpy

@Mithrandir another possible annoyance could be a time-frame requirement.

Mithrandir

yep

coder-croc

editing tag didn't work for cleanup duty...

Derpy

10:43

@coder-croc either you have to ADD tags and not just remove wrong ones.... or I don't know

coder-croc

@Derpy Okay.. I've already did that with 4-5 questions atleast.. let me do it with some more..

Eran

Do you guts think the 15 comments for Waffles must be posted on a single day? I had 1 comment on an answer, then I added 14 comments on the question and other answers of that question. I didn't get the hat. Only after posting the 15th comment today (and 16th total) I got waffles. It could be a delay thing, but I waited half an hour before adding that final comment, and got waffles 10 minutes later.

Mithrandir

Hang on, let me ask my intestines.

Eran

oops :)

too late to edit that

Derpy

@Eran when in doubt, assume random arbitrary time restrictions for added annoyance. That's Winter Bash version of Occam's Razor

Eran

10:51

Well, I can say I wanted to know what's your gut feeling about this. @Mithrandir

Mithrandir

;)

coder-croc

@Eran I've just added my 15th comment.. let's see. Will update here if I get the hat...

It's difficult to forcibly write 15 comments on a question.. whew!

@Eran Did you post 16th comment on the same question?

Eran

@coder-croc no, most of my comments were on answers of a single question. Few were on the question itself

coder-croc

Okay! Thanks..

Derpy

11:24

tried a few more edits on Sharepoint, adding tags too.

coder-croc

12:30

@Eran No hat so far! :(

Derpy

... will try again when the real trigger is found ;_;. As I say, we must be missing something

knowing the staff, and based on the hat picture, I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow referenced the old...

48

A: Requesting a "Stop Polishing Turds" Edit Suggestion Reject Reason

I really wanted this reason too; last fall when we revamped the edit decline reasons, pointless edits on doomed posts showed up repeatedly as a problem in the discussion and in my own analysis of edits. The problem is that it's even harder to nail down the criteria for "turd-polishing" than for ...

Farwa

Retro fan for consecutive visits? :?

Derpy

oh, and I was wondering how I got 2 rep points for editing my own post ^_^...

the real cause was a removed downvote.

the advent calendar is slowly rising but that's still not enough for the watch.

coder-croc

13:00

I'm one UV short for Sun Wukong! :( Can someone help!?

WELZ

@Mithrandir I got it on Meta.SE did not make 20 edits (even including personal posts)

Mithrandir

hmm

Noon

What about the hypotheses that it must be X edit on Y separate days?

Or, for X visited questions, make Y edits

CalvT

Or, add x different tags?

I did a bunch of retagging, but it was all with the same tags

WELZ

▲ that, might be an idea.

CalvT

13:10

@WELZ seems to have retagged 6 questions, all with different tags

WELZ

@CalvT I got it after the 5th

CalvT

Ok, I'm off to try it

WELZ

Use the handy data.se query (by @Glorfindel) to find questions which only have 1 tag and need more.

CalvT

@WELZ Cheers, was just wondering how to do that

WELZ

I'm gonna check my GDSE edits, because I did some retagging, let me see how many tags I used.

I did 7+ tags.

CalvT

13:15

How many on meta?

WELZ

I don't know which exact edits were approved after I got the hat, but it's something like 7-9 tags

I did 10 tags on GDSE, can't be that.

Maybe it's got to do with timing

X (tag) edits in X minutes?

jknappen

14:21

Finally managed to get Waffles by chatting a lot.

JackNavaRow

14:35

0

Q: Como saber si una fecha se pasa de dos meses en JS

Buenas tengo dos fechas en tipo string como pueden ser las siguientes: var fecha1 = '2018-11-03'; var fecha2 = '2018-02-03'; Y quiero saber cual es el código más eficiente para comparar esas dos fechas y saber si la diferencia de meses es 2 o superior. Edito: Tengo un formulario con bootstrap...

javascript

look that user, he has "Clean-Up Duty"

sorrry

es.stackoverflow.com/users/109169/riaven#winter-bash

Derpy

? who?

JackNavaRow

@Derpy es.stackoverflow.com/users/109169/…

WELZ

And a bunch of edits

Derpy

@JackNavaRow again, a bunch of edits with no apparent rule.

JackNavaRow

yeap

Derpy

14:42

it is evident that the hat is related to edits...

what kind of edits actually count for it is another story

as I said, there must be some deliberate arbitrary filter

and based on history, something that either is not related at all at promoting good behavior or fails completely at doing so.

JackNavaRow

questions edits?

Derpy

wouldn't be surprised if it is something time related, related to post quality or maybe low tag usage

not going to waste more time trying until we see a concrete pattern :P

JackNavaRow

some edit questions didn't receive +1

Derpy

oh, yep, you may be right. Totally in winter bash style

CalvT

Also "just adding tags" doesn't quite match up with "clean-up"

Usually the names make sense

JackNavaRow

14:49

in fact, some edit questions recieved -1

Derpy

@CalvT they also had to use that picture.... so I am not really sure...

anyway, if votes are involved then I expect something like

> do X edits and the post gets at least Y votes after being edited.

which is very realistic since it is the usual punch in the face to users on low traffic sites.

"Oh, so you edited all the post but got no votes because your site gets two votes in a day? Sorry, no hat for you. Try on SO next time."

Noon

@Derpy IPS doesn't have so much upvote and I got it relatively easily

JackNavaRow

edit and then delete question

Noon

@JackNavaRow Nop, none of the post I edited was then deleted

JackNavaRow

me too

did you edit question with -1?

Noon

15:00

@JackNavaRow Very unlikely, maybe 0 but not a negative score

CalvT

All of @WELZ's 5 edits had at least 1 upvote after their edits

WELZ

Really?

CalvT

Yep

WELZ

Can it be my own upvote?

Since it wasn't my own post.

CalvT

Wait no - the first one didn't

Which was closed as duplicate

The 5 after that did

Ha I think I know what I'm about to do :D

goes and upvotes lots of posts

Maybe it's edit tags and upvote?

WELZ

15:08

They were all also over 1 year old.

CalvT

@WELZ nope

JackNavaRow

edit a question and mark it as duplicate

WELZ

@CalvT I'm pretty sure I got the hat before that edit

CalvT

Well I've upvoted 6 posts that I've edited, one which is recent, the rest over 4 years old

Noon

@JackNavaRow Can't be it, all the question I edited are still open. They are also less than a year old

JackNavaRow

15:16

maybe, you edited the question and another user marked it as (duplicated, low quality, **)

Noon

@JackNavaRow No, I would have seen it in the review queue

JackNavaRow

edit question without comments?

Noon

@JackNavaRow I didn't commented when I was editing but all the questions had already some comment on them

JackNavaRow

could be

CalvT

@Noon when did you earn the hat? Just looking at your revision history for hints

Noon

15:28

@CalvT Dec 14 a little before 21:06 French hour (see here is when I posted my avatar with the hat)

JackNavaRow

@Noonif you edited a question and next OP re edited

Noon

@JackNavaRow I pretty sure this didn't happened

CalvT

Well a lot of them received votes after your edit

It could be tag edit then votes, not counting your own votes

Noon

It could be, yes

CalvT

15:45

New theory

2 retags on a post which gets an upvote and an answer after

Or could be just one

But WELZ did that twice

JackNavaRow

@CalvT me too

CalvT

Ah excellent

Is somewhat tricky to test though

The answer may also need a positive score

Dylan

Phew thats a lot of variables

CalvT

Actually one of WELZ's edited questions doesn't have any new votes

So latest theory - 2 retags that get a positive answer after

Snow

It's not as bad as having to guess the requirements for Red Baron. That one would be a pig to diagnose.

Jesse Busman

16:05

Does "it's-a-me" work if you delete comments under your own edited post?

Snow

No, it's someone elses post or question.

Jesse Busman

@Snow Ok, thanks :)

Snow

> It's-a-me: delete 6 comments from under posts (not your own) that were edited by their owners after you commented on them

click on the badge icon in the winterbash screen to see a more detailed explanation of each badge trigger.

CalvT

Could someone upvote this? It's community-wiki so I won't get any rep gain - It'll also be deleted shortly

Snow

so they have to be edited by the person who originally made the question/answer, and not edited by some other random person.

@CalvT done

Jesse Busman

16:07

@Snow Ahh, much better explanations there, thanks again. They were so vague ^_^

@CalvT upvoted

CalvT

@Snow Thanks - that's two questions now that have new answers with upvotes after my retag. Let's see what happens

Snow

happy to help

CalvT

It might not work as it may need answers and votes from other people but we'll see

QHarr

16:28

just got clean up duty after upvoting, editing tags and answering several old questions. Delays means can't be sure that is trigger.

Denis Bubnov

16:43

Hello everyone! )

Dylan

16:58

oy Denis!

Rafael

17:29

Hi! Sorry for the pedantry, but if the silencium badge is intended to be in Latin (is it?), it should be silentium instead.

see here

CalvT

@Rafael Do you mean hat?

Nog Shine

Silencium

►

Rafael

18:03

@NogShine Ok, I see

@CalvT Yes, thank you for the correction

Erin B

18:49

yo, is the RPG stack exchange not participating in the winter bash? I don't think i got a hat for them

CalvT

@ErinB All sites minus area51 are participating

Erin B

weird, I didn't get a "still fresh" notification for that one

Thanks though, will look into it further!

CalvT

@ErinB Because the requirements for still fresh are "be a user on the site for less than 6 months before Winter Bash, or join during Winter Bash; have earned at least 25 reputation", and you joined over a year ago

Erin B

oh, so I just don't get a hat at all then?

CalvT

You can get other hats

Just not Still Fresh

Erin B

18:53

gotcha, was hoping they were tiered after 6 months, my bad

thanks a ton!

like "6-12 months gets hat #2" or something

WELZ

@ErinB nah, they made that hat specifically for new users to get

Erin B

19:14

ahh, got it, ty

CalvT

19:27

Right I've just got clean up on SO

Not sure why

My theory of Retag 2 questions that then get a new answer with a positive score stands

But I've been doing a lot of retagging

Erik the Outgolfer

lots of retagging can go on there ^

CalvT

My other theory is Retag a question that then gets an answer that is accepted with a positive score

Glorfindel

20:00

4

A: Which sites don't participate in Winter Bash?

The following Q&A sites don't participate in Winter Bash 2018 or 2017. They can be recognized by not having the snowflake in the top bar, and the fact that they don't appear in the Winter Bash leaderboard. MathOverflow – they have never participated at all since they were migrated to Stack Exch...

MathOverflow and CS50 aren't participating either.

Pieter Geerkens

20:22

Any thoughts on Rubber Ducky? The answer posted suggests using the Discard button on any Ask Question page but that didn't work. As I just received Waffles for comments created AFTER I made the Rubber Ducky attempt, on the same site, I believe I have waited long enough for the update.

CalvT

@PieterGeerkens You are doing it on the main site? Not meta?

Erik the Outgolfer

that works on Meta.SE

CalvT

@EriktheOutgolfer That counts as a meta and main site

Erik the Outgolfer

yep

Pieter Geerkens

@CalvT: Yes.

@CalvT: The site was History.StackExchange.com

CalvT

20:26

@PieterGeerkens Ok, I'm going to attempt to get rubber ducky there, and will let you know what I do

Pieter Geerkens

@CalvT: I am trying now on the Meta site, just in case.

CalvT

@PieterGeerkens Ok. I've clicked "Ask a question", filled the title, body and tags with nonsense, and then clicked discard

Pieter Geerkens

@CalvT: Never mind. While waiting for the Discard button to show on Meta, my Rubber Ducky arrived.

CalvT

Ok :)

Pieter Geerkens

That must mean that the hats are checked serially, not in parallel I guess.

CalvT

20:31

Just takes patience

Yes, it's a per hat per site script I believe

Dylan

22:07

@PieterGeerkens :) I would not have posted it there if it were not correct.

Pieter Geerkens

22:26

@Dylan: We all strive to be perfect - but occasionally even the best of us miss. The notices arrived in a very strange order, leading me to wonder if the description perhaps was slightly incomplete - not erroneous.

Pieter Geerkens

22:46

Does anyone know if Silencium be earned for a Closed as Duplicate question?

David

@PieterGeerkens I say your comment. It's a good question. I did a little looking and I'm not sure.

In general no. questions can not be closed to earn hats. However I remember a few years back another trigger kind of like this one and I think closed might of counted.

Pieter Geerkens

I'll know for sure in 7 days.
https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/320455/what-is-a-new-contributor-for-winter-bash-purposes

David

@PieterGeerkens I'll forget to look, so when you know the answer ping me. I'm curious.

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