English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwighт

8:00 PM

@KitFox as a side note, you can still see the flag in the mod menu. No need to think as much.)))

tchrist

@simchona Yes.

simchona

@tchrist It's up to you on close voting.

tchrist

I think I go in streaks.

And then I feel guilty.

So then I answer things I maybe should not.

It is just that after so many bad questions, it is easy to grab at anything that isn't miserable.

simchona

@RegDwighт Can you chime in on this? I feel like I'm not getting through on "it wasn't even an answer, it's not that I don't like it"

MετάEd

8:20 PM

@simchona Do I have to delete the link to my example in order for us to discuss the substance? I'm perfectly willing to do that.

simchona

@MετάEd You're arguing based on an example that is essentially "here's a site. Search it yourself". That's not an answer

MετάEd

Because I have no attachment at all to my deleted answer.

simchona

So you can't argue that it should stay as an answer, even on a GR

MετάEd

I am arguing based on the FAQ entries and the comment privilege document.

simchona

The FAQ entry says your answer should be deleted anyway, though.

KitFox

8:23 PM

So I should probably find a better example than the one I linked to, but seriously, don't answer off-topic questions.

Cerb was asserting only that we shouldn't downvote those answers.

MετάEd

@simchona I don't know why in your mind this is about my answer. It's about whether we should, as a matter of policy, be turning answers to GR questions into comments.

KitFox

So. We should not answer GR questions.

Therefore, turning "answers" into comments is valid. Or just deleting them.

MετάEd

@KitFox I personally do not care if people answer GR questions, as long as the GR question is handled properly (closevoted and eventually deleted).

An answer to a GR question gets the question out of the unanswered questions queue, and it might even be expected to be helpful to the OP even though later we do away with the question.

simchona

@MετάEd The OP explicitly said it wasn't helpful

MετάEd

In fact the only difference between a GR answer as an answer and a GR answer as a comment is that a "real" answer is helpful, editorially, because it gets the question out of the unanswered questions queue.

@simchona This is not about my particular answer.

I really don't know how to be any more clear about that.

KitFox

8:27 PM

OK then.

MετάEd

For the sake of argument, I am willing to assume that my particular answer was completely bogus. That has absolutely no bearing on my meta question.

KitFox

In general, converting answers to comments is a matter of moderator discretion.

The fact that it was related to a GR question is irrelevant.

So the answer to your question is "Yes, if a mod thinks there is a reason to do so."

MετάEd

@KitFox In a way, everything is up to moderator discretion, because moderators have the privilege, which they rightly earned. However I think converting answers to comments is not a good idea when the answer does, in fact, answer the question. This is because that actually contradicts actual policy: comments are not the place for answers, that's what we tell everyone.

Matt Эллен

with the exception of link only answers.

which is general policy too

MετάEd

And I mean we tell everyone here, where it matters: english.stackexchange.com/privileges/comment

KitFox

8:30 PM

So then "No, we don't convert actual answers to comments ever."

If you have a specific case you want to talk about, then we can look at how those terms are defined.

MετάEd

@MattЭллен I don't accept the argument that link-only answers are never actual answers. We actually have a name for a link-only answer that is an actual answer. It's an answer to a GR question. So we can't very well say they aren't actual answers.

Matt Эллен

@MετάEd OK, but that is SE policy

"if your answer is just a link, then don't post it" to paraphrase

MετάEd

@MattЭллен I am perfectly willing to concede that it is SE policy ... all it would take to convince me is to show me the SE policy. It's SE's site, after all. If they don't want link only answers, ever, that's their prerogative. But so far all I have is the unsubstantiated statement that it's policy.

Matt Эллен

11

Q: Why do I get exactly the same comment by different users for my link-only answer?

Since the last 2 days, I am getting a message in my SO Inbox with the comment below for my previous answers where I have suggested only a link as the answer. While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for refe...

although, apparently this:

25

Q: Should I flag answers which contain only a link as "not an answer"?

More than often I get a lot of itch when I see an answer which contains only a link. For example this one. Check this link, it will solve your query.. http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/v6r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.websphere.express.doc/info/exp/ae/rdat_dawp02.html This ...

discussion answers flagging not-an-answer link-only-answers

KitFox

english.stackexchange.com/faq#deletion

> Answers that do not fundamentally answer the question may be removed. This includes answers that are …

MετάEd

8:37 PM

@MattЭллен Right. But we agree that many link-only answers do not fundamentally answer the question. That's not in dispute.

KitFox

> barely more than a link to an external site

Matt Эллен

26

Q: Should there be a policy about 'One-Link-Only-Answers'?

See also: Are answers that just contain links elsewhere really "good answers"? | Is it okay to answer a stackoverflow question with a link? | Why is linking bad? Related: How do I properly write an answer that references my blog? We all have seen it, and might even given some ...

discussion answers content link-only-answers

MετάEd

@KitFox Right. I dealt with that in my meta question.

KitFox

So how doesn't that address link-only answers?

MετάEd

The point is that even SE management acknowledges that some link-only answers do definitively answer the question.

KitFox

8:38 PM

Which is up to the discretion of the community and the mods.

MετάEd

I wouldn't hesitate to downvote or delete a link-only answer which did not definitively answer the question.

KitFox

But is generally discouraged.

Matt Эллен

anyway. I've muddied the water, I'm off to play games

KitFox

Bai!

@Cerb Your spider friend is getting agitated.

MετάEd

@KitFox All I am trying to discourage is the specific practice of converting valid answers into comments. We should not have valid answers in comments, that's also SE policy, so we should not be converting valid answers into comments.

tchrist

8:40 PM

On SO, link-only answers are regularly flagged as Not An Answer.

KitFox

Look, @MετάEd, you know I love you very much, but this is a little silly.

tchrist

It depends on the mod who gets to it, but most of them delete them.

I watch the flag queues, and track, because I wanted to know what the right thing or accepted thing was there.

Mostly they are deleted.

KitFox

We more or less follow the policies, and if you are talking generalities, well, there really isn't anything to discuss.

MετάEd

In the case of a GR question, a link-only answer could be a valid answer (by definition, because that's what it means to be a GR question). Those should be left alone, not converted to comments.

KitFox

If you want to talk specifically about why your link was moved to a comment, we can do that.

@MετάEd Except that off-topic questions shouldn't be answered. This is already covered.

MετάEd

8:47 PM

@KitFox Similarly, I am perfectly willing to concede that off-topic questions shouldn't be answered as a matter of SE policy ... let me see the SE policy. The meta you linked to is not helpful. There wasn't a consensus, and it was scoped to exclude GR questions anyway.

KitFox

8

Q: Should I answer off-topic questions?

Should I post an answer to an off-topic question after flagging it? I seem to find off-topic questions that I can give a good, useful and correct answer to. (The specific question tonight is this one, but it's happened several times this month now). Other users have clearly deemed the question ...

discussion answers etiquette off-topic

> If the question is not a real question, not constructive, too localized or off topic on all SE sites: Vote/flag to close. Don't answer the question.

MετάEd

@MattЭллен's links seem to agree with me: "not every answer with just a link in it should be a comment"; "the problem with one-link answers is that if the content that drives them is gone, they're gone" (which does not apply to GR questions because they won't last long enough for bitrot).

KitFox

Off-topic questions are off-topic.

GR questions are not special.

MετάEd

GR is a close reason. Just because GR is a close reason does not mean GR questions are off topic.

They're on topic, but too simple for the site.

@KitFox Similarly, "exact duplicate" doesn't mean the question is off topic. Just means it's a dupe.

In fact I could easily dream up an on-topic GR question and an off-topic GR question, and you would easily identify which was which.

KitFox

No, you've got it all wrong.

We close questions that are off-topic.

GR is by definition off-topic.

Exact duplicate is a special case because it points to the existing question.

You're not supposed to answer dupes either.

That's why you can't answer closed questions.

I've got to go. We can talk about it more later if you want.

MετάEd

9:14 PM

@KitFox Duplicates are a perfect example. We want the primary question on the topic to be where answers are given, which is why we close the dupe and prevent answers to it. But the duplicates are on topic, and that's why we generally don't delete them. In fact they are good for attracting searchers so they can be directed to the primary question.

Exact duplicate is not a special case; it's just a reason to close a question.

MετάEd

9:34 PM

Just look at the "Off Topic" close reason. It is used only for questions which do not "relate to English language and usage within the scope defined in the FAQ". The scope of the site is right there in the first FAQ entry. For example if it's an English grammar question, it's not OT. Even if it should not be answered for some other reason, such as GR or Not Constructive or it's a dupe, it's not OT.

@KitFox This meta question bears me up on this also. The answer treats "off topic" as just one of the various reasons we close a question. It doesn't treat "off topic" as the sort of super-category that you are thinking of it as.

RegDwighт

@MετάEd I think what you say right there is really the essential part. We can throw out the rest and cut to the chase. "GR questions [...] they won't last long enough for bitrot". That is very true. That question will be deleted in a week. If it isn't already. So it doesn't matter if your answer is left as an answer or converted to a comment. It will be gone either way.

For the record: I actually thought you misclicked when I saw that answer. I thought you meant it as a comment. Everybody misclicks like that. I have misclicked like that. So that is what I thought had happened there.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт The practical reason not to do it is still to get the question off the unanswered queue.

RegDwighт

Ah.

I read something like that in the meta post, I think. Before leaving for supper.

MετάEd

I did say that right from the start. That was what I wrote in the meta post.

jinx

RegDwighт

Frankly, I'm not sure that that's too grave a reason. Do you monitor that queue? I wasn't aware you were. I wasn't aware anybody were.

We are topping the charts with our 100% answer rate.

So our unanswered queue is the least of our troubles.

MετάEd

9:41 PM

Yes, from time to time I do check both unanswered queues: the one for questions with no accepted answer, and the one for questions with no answer at all.

RegDwighт

I see.

MετάEd

Whenever I want to busy myself with answering questions, that's the first place I look. It's obviously the way to find questions that lack answers, I think.

RegDwighт

Well by way of full disclosure, that's a queue I look at like once a year. Tops.

MετάEd

Right, but you are, I think at your own admission, not really concentrating on answering questions.

RegDwighт

Now hold on. I think when I deleted your answer I saw the question having another answer or two. No?

MετάEd

9:43 PM

Right. Don't get too hung up on my answer and that particular question. That's just what raised the bigger question in my mind.

RegDwighт

@MετάEd yeah. Recently I have been, again. But that doesn't really count. For all intents and purposes I'm on hiatus.

MετάEd

The bigger question is why we would ever convert a helpful, sufficient answer to a comment.

RegDwighт

@MετάEd I'm just saying, it would have been a solution to just upvote one of the existing answers. Don't remember them, no idea if they were any good. But I think a link to Etymonline already existed elsewhere on the page.

MετάEd

Basically it works against the unanswered queue and works against our own policy too. That's all I am saying.

@RegDwighт Mine was a very early answer. I don't think I saw any other answers.

RegDwighт

You are asking the wrong person, then. If you look at my comments history on SO, you will see that about four comments out of five are "Please sum up or quote the crucial bits right here. Link-only answers are subject to deletion without further notice. Thanks."

MετάEd

9:46 PM

@RegDwighт See I think that's a reasonable thing when it's not an answer to a GR question.

RegDwighт

Which is likely what I would have left on your answer, too, had it not been you. Because again, that made me think that you misclicked.

@MετάEd of course. But as you can guess, in nine cases out of ten the person does exactly nothing. And as tchrist seems to have pointed out (I'm not done catching up yet), their answers are then silently and routinely deleted.

On SO, that is.

Here on ELU we don't get that many to begin with.

In fact we have more of the opposite problem. People quoting definitions God only knows from where.

MετάEd

For me the big deal is that we officially discourage people from answering in comments. But apparently for GR questions we actually go out of our way sometimes to turn answers into comments, which not only is wrong per se but makes the unanswered queue less useful.

simchona

@MετάEd There were two fully fleshed out answers within at most an hour of yours. I don't think an extra hour killed the queue

MετάEd

We should just let the GR answers be, even if they are link-only answers.

RegDwighт

It's a bit schizophrenic, yes. But you have to remember that we are one of very few (two?) sites out of 90+ that have the GR reason at all.

You might also remember that I used to fiercely oppose it before it got introduced.

MετάEd

9:51 PM

@simchona Yes, and that's precisely my point. People do look for unanswered questions, and answer them. That was a GR question. If GR questions have an answer, presumably they will attract fewer other answers.

RegDwighт

There's little we can work off of. We have to make up the rules as we go along.

tchrist

@RegDwighт Bill always deletes them, no comments made and no questions asked. Others, usually new mods, sometimes first leave a comment and wait to see whether anything comes of it. It never does.

MετάEd

I consider it good for GR questions to become less attractive. The same person who spent the time answering a GR question might choose to spend that time answering a worthy question.

simchona

@MετάEd Then why are you arguing that your answer, or any link only answer, should have remained? It's not like you were the only one, staving off the unanswered queue. Further, a post needs to be upvoted to get the post off that list.

RegDwighт

So the way I see it MetaEd tries to redistribute our manpower in the right direction. Now the thing is, in general I have no data on how much of our manpower is monitoring the Unanswered queue at all, and in particular, if this particular question is any lesson, Ed's efforts to use soft power to motivate people into answering other questions were sadly futile.

MετάEd

9:56 PM

@simchona We get a lot of GR questions. It would be helpful if they were not left unanswered.

simchona

@MετάEd Why? They're supposed to get closed, not answered

RegDwighт

This whole GR thing is killing me.

@simchona it is schizophrenic, as I said earlier.

We also discussed it with Cerberus a while ago in more detail.

The idea is to provide proof that a question actually is GR.

MετάEd

@simchona Because an answered question attracts fewer other answers.

RegDwighт

So all Ed is saying is that we should do so in answers, not comments.

simchona

GR questions get closed fairly quickly, so I'm not sure I see much use if the answer is that clear

RegDwighт

9:58 PM

Which, to me, is basically same difference because it will get deleted anyway.

simchona

I think answering every question sets a precedent, just as there's a precedent if high-rep users answer off-topic questions

MετάEd

If it's the same difference, then why go to the effort specifically to convert answers to comments? It seems to me it's a lot simpler to let them stand as answers until the question is closed.

simchona

@MετάEd It's easy when something gets flagged

I don't know that any of us troll questions going, "what can I convert today?"

But yours got flagged as NaA

MετάEd

And as you say, it's schizophrenic. It sends mixed messages: are comments the wrong places for answers? We get too damned many answers in comments as it is.

RegDwighт

One thing to keep in mind is, those folks who ask off-topic or GR questions, they are drive-by folks. They don't even know or care about the difference between answers and comments. For all they know, this is how it's supposed to work: you get an answer in smaller font because it's not as important as the question, and then the question is marked as "closed" because it has been dealt with.

I'm not even making this up.

So anyway. All they care about is that they get their answer. And if they get it, they learn from that and come back. Small font or not, closed or open, whatever.

MετάEd

10:01 PM

@RegDwighт That's a different problem. As Deming always said, that's a management problem. If the site leads people to believe that, the problem is with the site, not the people.

@RegDwighт There's one born every minute. Do you have any reason to believe that denying a person an answer will have even a minute effect on the workload?

RegDwighт

@MετάEd you have a point, but here's mine: people are dumb. They don't read. They don't care. They can't tell "Ask Question" from "Your Answer". Never assume malice, but never rule out stupidity, either.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт I've lived by that motto for years.

It seems to me, since you're bringing up how we might discourage people from repeated site abuse: don't we suspend users a whole lot less than they do over at StackOverflow and other sites?

RegDwighт

@MετάEd you're stealing Cerberus' line. We had some heated discussion about that. Well, not really heated, or a discussion, because neither of us really knows. We can only guess, and anybody's guess is as good as anybody else's, it's just that ours happened to be in opposing directions.

MετάEd

So ... two guesses against one now.

Spit in one hand ... I know the rest.

RegDwighт

Hah.

MετάEd

10:06 PM

So why not get happier with brief suspensions? "You made a mess, now think about it for a day and come back, if you come back, wiser".

RegDwighт

@MετάEd And yeah, I sometimes do wonder if my life time is not better spent on... well anything, really, other than cleaning up after people who Just Don't Care™.

@MετάEd no idea. I have no data on SO. I could ask around, I guess. Not that I would be allowed to disclose it.

And as far as ELU goes, I'm picking the cherries. Suspending people for 3+ years. The run-of-the-mill suspensions I generously leave to other mods.

tchrist

s/cherries/durian fruits/

RegDwighт

See, my wife would know what kind of fruit that is.

tchrist

Hanlon's razor

Hanlon's Razor is an eponymous adage that reads: ' This particular form is attributed to Robert J. Hanlon. However, earlier utterances that convey the same basic idea are known. Origins and similar quotations The quotation first came from Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania, according to his friend Joseph Bigler, as a submission for a book compilation of various jokes related to Murphy's law published in 1980 titled Murphy's Law Book Two, More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong. The name was inspired by Occam's razor. A similar quotation appears in Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 short story ...

RegDwighт

Let me shout a bit.

tchrist

10:10 PM

Stupid autoboxing deleted Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

RegDwighт

Okay my wife is unable to describe it other than saying that it stinks like hell.

Feb 25 '11 at 11:53, by RegDwight

"It is currently estimated to be up to deep. The trench is about long but has a mean width of only."

MετάEd

Durians are nice.

RegDwighт

@MετάEd anyway, back to your point. Again, people who are new or don't care or are new and don't care, won't care about one-day suspensions, either. It won't ring any bells. But it will mean a whole lot of additional work for the mods.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт What are the other ELU mods typically doing? Yannis says here that he suspends without warning for many things, and for other things suspends after one warning. I don't know but I suspect ELU mods suspend far less easily than Yannis.

tchrist

Suspending without warning is only something to be done for spammers and related terrorists.

Don't you think?

I don't think the problem is lack of suspensions. I really, really, really do not.

We have 56 new idiots per week.

That is the problem.

MετάEd

10:15 PM

@tchrist I'm just considering all the tools in the toolbox. As I said earlier, there's one born every minute.

RegDwighт

@MετάEd a quick glance at that post doesn't make it seem to me that we are doing things differently from Yannis, but then again I can't begin to imagine how much crap they must be getting.

MετάEd

It seems to me, though, that if you are going to try dissuade that particular idiot from doing idiocy a second time, suspension is good.

RegDwighт

@tchrist spammers are destroyed or merged into throwaway suspended accounts. Depends on the site. Depends on the mod. Depends on the mood.

MετάEd

@tchrist If by "related terrorists" you include people who do sockpuppet voting and revenge voting, that sort of thing.

You don't always tell a small child you'll time them out "next time" they have a tantrum. You time them out, cool them off, the first time and every time.

RegDwighт

But yeah. I don't think Yannis would have had any patience for Thursagen.

Me, I am the Spanish Inquisition. You don't see me coming. Because I take forever.

Thursagen got to 10k before getting nuked.

Cerberus

10:20 PM

@KitFox Right, right, I was going to read his anti-philosophical tract...

I had to cook for a friend.

MετάEd

Thursagen was before my time, I think. What happened with Thursagen? I have seen some reasonable posts with that name on them, I think.

Cerberus

Banned, I think?

simchona

@MετάEd Chameleon answers

Cerberus

Yes, many of his posts were acceptable.

RegDwighт

He posted utter crap. Then waited for people to comment. Then used their comments to turn his utter crap into reasonable or even great answers. Rinse repeat, ten times a day.

Cerberus

10:22 PM

Hello.

Chameleon?

@RegDwighт He did that, but he also posted many answers that were by no means bad from the start.

MετάEd

@Reg I've never heard of anybody doing that. Is that what you mean by chameleon answers, @sim?

RegDwighт

Also, never forget that of course what you see is not utter crap, because utter crap is deleted.

simchona

@MετάEd Yup

MετάEd

So crowdsourcing one's answers. Cute.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт I have seen his crap!

RegDwighт

10:23 PM

@Cerberus which is why it took so long. We had only soft evidence that we accumulated over time. Nothing grand we could just point a finger at and suspend on the spot.

Cerberus

And much of it was not that bad.

@RegDwighт Yes, exactly.

There was always something fishy about his character.

RegDwighт

Characters.

Cerberus

But casual visitors would have been fine with his answers.

RegDwighт

Don't forget the brother and the sister and the uncle and the father.

Cerberus

Yes, characters.

Of course.

RegDwighт

10:24 PM

@Cerberus which is why some of them are still up. Many.

Cerberus

And his second cousin's third wife's stepdaughter's My Little Pony.

Yeah.

MετάEd

So, since I am a professional devil's advocate, what exactly is wrong with this chameleon approach? I assume what we ended up with was decent answers that could be useful for future visitors?

RegDwighт

@MετάEd that was just one thing.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Yes.

@RegDwighт Yeah there were multiple issues, but I think I was undecided, and then one day he was suspended.

Wasn't he sock-puppeting?

And not a little bit?

RegDwighт

He would drop by in chat and foment unrest and division. Or just troll. He would plagiarize. He would plagiarize again. And again. He would engage in salami tactics. You tell him to do X properly, he will do X properly but only X. You then have to tell him to do Y properly, too. This went on for a year.

tchrist

10:27 PM

@RegDwighт Easy with 37 sockpuppets having a lovefest over you.

RegDwighт

Right. He would have sockpuppets. He would upvote himself. He would revenge-downvote.

Really a nice package all around.

And anyway I am not really supposed to be talking about this.

MετάEd

It sounds like Yannis would have had no patience, indeed. What I wonder is why anybody did.

tchrist

I still find it surprising he made it to 10k.

@MετάEd I'm not completely certain about revenge voting, provided it is without socks. People do these things. They are reversed. Right? Is harm done?

MετάEd

We should have a good sockpuppet filter, too. Do we have one? I think not, because I am still discovering Nortonn puppets from time to time.

tchrist

It is just stoopid.

And how do you write a sockpuppet filter?

se muda, de nuevo

MετάEd

10:32 PM

@tchrist Anyone who revenge votes is not using the site in good faith, they are being abusive. And you want to curtail that not just to protect the vote totals, but because the natural inclination is "tit for tat". I think it's important to be strict about the etiquette of the site, maybe more than just about anything else.

Because I think if a site has an air of disrepectfulness about it, it will turn into mush.

A sockpuppet filter would queue posts that have the same profile as a known puppeteer.

So you'd see in the queue that there was a new user having an IP address and/or browser profile which match an existing user, and a mod could run that queue and see if a user merge was needed.

RegDwighт

Back.

MετάEd

Generally speaking, browsers provide quite a good signature that can be compared.

RegDwighт

@MετάEd because, contrary to popular belief, we are actually nice here. We believe in the good in people. I am actually having my straight face on right now.

MετάEd

Plus you can do things like cookie the browser.

@RegDwighт Right. Nice is very important. But so is setting and enforcing healthy boundaries.

RegDwighт

@MετάEd yeah there was a whole site, or probably many, dedicated to that. Telling you how unique your browser string was.

MετάEd

10:37 PM

A wise user here recently said that it's a hard lesson to learn but it's important that if people won't honor boundaries that there be real consequences.

Cerberus

I remember this site.

It told me very little, I believe.

RegDwighт

It told me nothing I couldn't tell it.

Cerberus

I think Kit and I talked about boundaries.

RegDwighт

That my UserAgent string was effing unique in the entire world.

Cerberus

Of course you can spoof anything.

MετάEd

10:38 PM

eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/tracking-by-user-agent

@Cerberus Yes, but what's harder to do is to spoof without giving clues that you're spoofing.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus our nice governments are working on fixing that. In the Free Democratic People's Republic of Dubai.

Cerberus

> Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 2,551,945 tested so far.

RegDwighт

Yup.

Hold the presses.

Cerberus

@MετάEd But that is not needed.

MετάEd

And it's always at least partly a matter of just making it too much trouble to do. If we could make it too much trouble for nortonn to create new sockpuppets, that would suffice.

Cerberus

10:40 PM

@RegDwighт Yay! But seriously, nothing will come of that, will it?

I mean, the US and the EU are strongly against it.

Together we dwarf the rest for the world, for now.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus hint: they are governments. They will shoot themselves in the foot. It's their job. There is only a tiny risk that they will shoot us in the foot in the process.

Cerberus

Naah, the Americans want to keep ICANN, and the EU doesn't want to give any control to autocratic regimes either.

RegDwighт

It's not even the US and the EU vs Tsar Putin; it's the US and the EU vs. fifty Tsars who all want entirely different things and are cross with one another. Divide and conquer.

Cerberus

Yes.

So how is that not an easy battle, or am I forgetting something?

European telcos are the worst of the lot, of course.

But the ITU has no power, right?

And nobody's willing to give them any, right?

RegDwighт

We'll see. But I'm not exactly holding my breath.

@MετάEd which is why I now delete his stuff on sight.

It used to be that I worried about Barrie. And others. Now no more.

Cerberus

10:45 PM

By the way, as to user-agent strings (or user agent strings?), I think what identifies me is just installed fonts.

It has all my installed fonts.

Go figure.

RegDwighт

By now everyone should be able to tell a Nortonn question.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Which means...

MετάEd

@RegDwighт Sure. The problem is sighting it right now is a matter of @simchona or myself or someone else who knows what to look for.

RegDwighт

First and foremost those who answer each and every single one of them.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт Then you are being too nice to them.

RegDwighт

10:46 PM

Not really. They put minutes of effort into something I delete with a single click.

MετάEd

If you really think Barrie knows a Nortonn when he sees it, then he's as guilty of site abuse as Nortonn.

RegDwighт

That adds up for them. Not for me.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт I get that. But if the pleasure for them is in the minutes of effort, regardless of where it goes (and I think that's true for Barrie, he doesn't seem to care how much time he spends and I have never seen him complain about deleted questions), then your calculus is wrong. He's getting value out of his minutes.

RegDwighт

@MετάEd careful. It's all about intentions. You can steal without realizing it. You can commit fraud by accident. You can kill a person and have it not be murder.

MετάEd

When a child has a tantrum, you don't blame the child, or scold the child. But you time the child out until they regain composure.

There's no need to accuse Barrie of deliberate site abuse. But it's abuse nevertheless, even if accidental. It's abuse of the rest of the people who waste time commenting on answers, etc.

Because Barrie doesn't just generate a moment of delete for you. He also generates considered thought in the minds of a bunch of people, some of whom go to the trouble to comment and so on.

RegDwighт

10:51 PM

Anyways. I must be off for today. Or at least pretend to be off now, so I can really go offline in thirty minutes. Like every day.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт Will it help your secret plan if we tag you in a few replies?

@RegDwighт Because I always aim to please.

RegDwighт

Every evening I swear to myself that tonight's the night I'll be getting some quality sleep in huge quantities. Every morning I regret being a liar.

Over and out.

Cerberus

Bai!

MετάEd

@Cerberus Right. That's the sort of thing that it is very inconvenient to change every time you create a new puppet. If the administration were to filter on stuff like that and create a mod queue with likely puppets on it, or even autosuspend for obvious puppets, that would make it much less worthwhile to engage in the behavior.

@RegDwighт Sleep well.

Cerberus

I would not be against such a queue.

However, the idea is not that it is actually hard to change such things (which it isn't), but rather that even trolls will probably not be aware of it or find it too much trouble.

MετάEd

10:54 PM

"In our sample, ngerprints changed quite
rapidly, but even a simple heuristic was usually able to guess when a n-
gerprint was an \upgraded" version of a previously observed browser's
ngerprint, with 99.1% of guesses correct and a false positive rate of only
0.86%."

Cerberus

In Firefox, there is an add-on that lets you change your string at the click of a button.

You could use a different browser.

You could use a script to automatically install and uninstall fonts.

@MετάEd How would you feel about a system where a troll can post stuff, and to him it appears as though his stuff is actually on the site, while in fact it is added only for him through some Javascript trick.

So it is invisible to others.

MετάEd

@Cerberus No good.

Cerberus

Why not?

MετάEd

If you mean the user-agent string, that only changes one thing. It was very easy for EFF to positively identify return visitors that had changed a thing or two about their browser.

Cerberus

Huh what do you mean?

MετάEd

11:00 PM

@Cerberus That's been debated before.

Cerberus

Good to know.

Robusto

Why did Reg used to worry about Barrie?

Cerberus

?

Robusto

Earlier in the transcript he said that.

Cerberus

Oh.

There is again a majority against making downloading illegal.

MετάEd

11:03 PM

@Cerberus The user-agent string is only part of "the full browser plugin and configuration space" that EFF uses in their analysis. For example your font list isn't there.

Cerberus

Even those in favour did not want private citizens to be prosecuted, but it's still another small victory.

Robusto

What doors that have to do with Barrie?

MετάEd

Your font list alone is extremely unique.

Robusto

does

Cerberus

Yes, I got it.

I thought you were replying to something else.

MετάEd

11:04 PM

@Robusto He used to worry about Barrie's reaction to having his Nortonn answers deleted.

Robusto

Well, the questions themselves were deleted.

If you remove the Flash plugin they can't get your don't signature.

RegDwighт

0

Q: Is there an app or c#/javascript/java API to compute Bible codes?

Please don't downvote this question. I am trying to give consciousness to a 100,000 line javascript file by scanning it with a Bible code parser. For example, if the file were conscious I could ask it questions about why it exists or what is the meaning of life.

api github artificial-intelligence

And I'm not here.

Cerberus

Hey!

Stop that.

MετάEd

@Robusto Yes. And Reg was worried about Barrie's reaction. He figures Barrie is answering questions in good faith. I suppose Reg worries that Barrie might be hurt or offended by the deletions of in-good-faith answers.

Robusto

Owl's well that ends well.

MετάEd

11:07 PM

@RegDwighт I was wrong. There's more than one born every minute.

Robusto

Barrie send pretty durable and resilient.

Seems

Stupid smart phone

Well, better go. Need to conserve battery. Flying home tonight!

Cerberus

Yay!

Hurry up.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт isn't here. Allegedly.

Cerberus

11:39 PM

> Yesterday, [patent-troll Lodys] filed two lawsuits against eleven companies in all, claiming that it invented common features like "live interactive chat," use of a "feedback soliciting FAQ," as well as "user feedback forms."

> The targets include companies like Nordstrom, Burberry, Dover Saddlery, Musician's Friend, and Godiva Chocolatier.

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/…

OMG we have "live interactive chat"!

We're next!

Better move all tech companies to Europe ASAP.

> All the new Lodsys lawsuits are filed in East Texas ... East Texas is a small world. Lodsys counsel William Davis is the son of US District Judge Leonard Davis, who is the chief judge of the Eastern District of Texas. (Davis can't practice before his father, so these cases will go to another judge.)

I hope Norstrom etc. are hit hard by this lawsuit, and major corporations will at last wake up and gather their forces to battle the evil that is US patent law.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…