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12:00 AM
@Zachiel What are you asking him about? I don't think he considers himself fluent in Pathfinderese.
 
I'm asking about the huge mass of comments
 
That's pretty much all the querent responding to each answer. Let me look closer.
 
Is he requesting clarification and/or suggesting improvement?
 
It looks pretty chatty. I'm considering leaving something like this:
> Comments aren't really a good place for discussing answers. If there's information you neglected to include in your question (like the reddit conversation which sparked it, perhaps), edit that into the question. And, as you've done, if you feel an answer is wrong the best thing to do is provide a correct answer. Comments are really supposed to be for suggesting ways an answer can be improved.
 
+ or requesting clarification
 
12:07 AM
> @Jason_c_o Comments aren't really a place for discussing answers. If there's information you neglected to include in your question (like the reddit conversation which sparked it, perhaps), edit that into the question. And, as you've done, if you feel an answer is wrong the best thing to do is provide a correct answer. Comments are really supposed to be for suggesting ways an answer can be improved, which can include requesting clarification.
 
better yet, comments are not only not a good place for it, they're not the place for it at all.
discussions in comments makes diamond moderators something something
 
@AlexP Mods have to get in touch with the com team to get the revision nuked, Personal info should be edited out as soon as it's noted
 
@BESW yes, that looks fine
 
I'm fiddling more, having read more of his comments.
> Comments aren't really a place for discussing answers--SE doesn't want to be a forum, so it doesn't expect you to explain your voting habits. If there's information you neglected to include in your question (like the reddit conversation which sparked it, or the answer PoV you were hoping to get), edit that into the question.
> And, as you've done, if you feel an answer is wrong the best thing to do is provide a correct answer. Comments are really supposed to be for suggesting ways an answer can be improved, which can include requesting clarification.
 
I posted a bossy mini-rant on that meta question.
On a lighter note, my friend hooked me up with the Vin Diesel playbook:
> xXx: When you take harm from falling, explosions, collapsing buildings, or any other sort of environmental effect, instead don’t take harm and take +1forward.
 
12:14 AM
> Don't use comments to refight the same argument each time a question comes up. RPG SE posts aren't an excuse to post your special spiel every time you see some pet-peeve keyword show up in a question or answer.
I want to hit this with a magical unicorn power of some kind that makes it stand out to everyone and rewards you with all the reps or something.
 
> Comments aren't a place for discussion--SE doesn't want to be a forum, so it doesn't expect you to explain your voting habits. If there's information you neglected to include in your question (like the inspiring reddit conversation, or the PoV you were hoping for), edit it into the question.
> And, as you've done, if you feel an answer is wrong the best thing to do is write a correct answer. Use comments to suggest improvements to an answer, including requesting clarification. (No need to defend accepting an unpopular answer, that's why "accepting" is separate from voting.)
 
Oh, that guy again
 
@Tridus Again?
 
@BESW point out that "accepting" ultimately just means "this is the answer that was most useful to me", hence the difference
 
@Zachiel A week or two ago he posted like 6 comments on the same question, basically complaining about how the question was being asked because he didn't like it. I ended up stepping in with my own comment that amounted to "you've made your opinion clear, comments are not for arguing."
 
12:19 AM
@JonathanHobbs Already posted.
 
@BESW Alright :)
 
Someone else might want to add that, and link to @AlexP's new meta explanation of comments.
But that might be overkill.
I'd be inclined to wait and see if he does it again.
 
I was actually just thinking on my drive home (it's a long drive), that positive comment guidance would be a good thing. I just posted a meta q, but I might delete it an make it an answer on Brian's post, debating
(it's a reminder to be deleting your own comments)
 
@waxeagle I think that's a good idea, putting it all together in one place.
Also, editing the results into posts.
I suspect a lot of the comments that are left unflagged are because "this discussion is useful," rather than realising it's the content of the discussion, not the dialogue, which is useful, and that can be edited into the answer.
We aren't Socratic.
 
@BESW right, there needs to be a better way to capture that dialogue into posts though. I sympathize that it's not easy to integrate a multi comment thread into real paragraphs, but that's partly due to misuse of the tools in the first place
I always tell people, if you go back and forth more than once on a single post, take it to chat, you've basically exhausted the usefulness of comments at that point
 
12:28 AM
That could be the subject of a meta question: "How do we learn to better distill the useful parts of comments into a post edit?"
@waxeagle Well, we're kind of afraid to do that now because we've been told it's wrong.
 
@BESW they can't have it both ways though. Stuff has to get hashed out somewhere
 
@waxeagle Or go to die somewhere. Sometimes it's okay for an argument to just go somewhere to die.
 
@AlexP That would be ideal. The problem is that we've seen that they don't The argument is going to continue, let's just encourage people to take it to the venue suited for the argument. If something comes back to the answer/question great, if not that's fine. They're off having an argument elsewhere
 
12:46 AM
I'll be reading the backlogs tomorrow. Ttfn.
 
@waxeagle That's true.
I kinda feel like starting a list of arguments I am sick of and just playing "bingo" with it.
(I mean, I'm sure I'm guilty of that at times, too.)
 
1:08 AM
0
A: A chart of comments per user

BESWThis is really cool maths, and I did take some time to reflect. It led me to think about a few points of confusion and lack of skill I suffer from (maybe some others do too?), and I'd like to share them in case it's helpful to anyone else. I think some of these might be worth expanding into their...

 
1:21 AM
@BESW They got on your case about using chat to talk to people to improve answers? The site explicitly tells you to do that if there are enough comments.
This is starting to sound like people are getting overly process heavy and forgetting that the goal is results (better answers)
 
@Tridus Well, the concern with chat is that workshopping everything in chat means that people who hang around chat become the de-facto voice of the site. Whereas the chat area is really the "derp around" section to give you something to do when you're bored.
There are lots of prolific and awesome users who are deeply involved in both posting on the site and helping others who have no chat presence.
 
I'm going through my comments oldest-to-newest and editing into questions so I can flag for deletion.
 
@AlexP Well thats fine, but they've essentially solved that problem by saying "don't workshop things." Which is not even remotely better. It's worse.
 
I'll try not to spam the front page more than a couple times a day though.
 
@Tridus This site workshops things way more than other SEs.
 
1:26 AM
Saying "don't workshop things in comments" and "don't workshop things in chat" is defacto "don't workshop things", because they haven't given another means to do it.
 
To an extent, I think that's the idea.
 
@AlexP So? It seems to be working pretty well for us. It's not like you can post a code snippet and ask "why doesn't this work?" for a game question they way you can on SO
 
@Tridus To be fair, I think their intended message was less "don't" and more "ease off and be more aware," but people like me took it as "don't" because we aren't sure how much is still okay.
 
@BESW So was there a meta question and vote on this that I missed, or is someone else acting as the voice of the community saying "hey stop that"
 
@waxeagle Didn't we get that notice like a month ago, too?
 
1:28 AM
@Tridus There was the moderators, as a group, saying that several questions had shifted repeatedly over the course of hours as a result of dragging the posters into chat.
I blame that on the question-askers more so than the chat clique, but, well, the more experienced users need to be aware of it.
 
Oy
 
[blink] Okay, I just found a comment that I'd normally delete as too chatty and move on.... but it has a score of +38.
 
Oh?
 
+1 for your Church response. Players are above-average people; the local authorities are staffed by average people; therefore, the authorities will happily hire/deputize/order the party to deal with it, while providing a reasonable-for-the-circumstances amount of help (the priest may have great knowledge of the undead, but he's a squishy low-powered clothy rather than a plate-wearing Smiter Of Evil; the players just got themselves a miniature escort mission in exchange for knowledge-based support). — BESW Oct 25 '12 at 11:51
It's an awful "too chatty" thread of comments, but every comment in it has at least +2.
So I'm going to move on.
 
bedtime, later :)
 
1:42 AM
ttfn
I'll be afk meself.
 
2:17 AM
@BESW let me think on that a bit. I'm off to bed but I think a graph addressing our conversation more explicity is warranted.
 
Aye, it's waited that long, it can wait longer. I'm leaving in your hands.
 
@Metool it was only given an official date the other day. It's been rumored and discussed a good bit, but had been on permanent 68 week status until just recently
 
Aaaand I got a Disciplined badge.
(I answered a question that turned out to later get edited so my answer was pointless.)
 
2:43 AM
@BESW Yeah, thanks for keeping that. The extraordinary comments are useful; that's why they've been left alone by the diamond mods too.
@BESW Yay! \o/
 
3:14 AM
0
Q: Don't signal your edits in text

Brian Ballsun-StantonTo amplify the bullet from here: Stop using the "Edit:" syntax of forums. We have explicit revision histories on everything, so everything should read as if the best version was the first version. if you see Edit: X hanging around, edit it out to make the content flow more smoothly. Specifi...

2
 
 
3 hours later…
6:19 AM
So, I dropped by my FLGS today and asked about d6s.
He doesn't sell them in blocks, just separately, for $0.50 apiece.
And I'm happy to buy them at that rate if I need to--I haven't found any other place on island which sells them at all, and I'm happy to support an FLGS.
But it really shows that the "don't spend 15 cents fixing your old dice or you're losing money!" answer is kinda... narrow... in its scope, and assumes that it's much broader.
 
6:35 AM
Yeah. I got a bunch of d6s for Mythender, and it actually cost me quite a bit.
 
Why is swashbuckler so strongly associated with pirate?
 
Because that's the most common place in modern media that you see fencing.
 
6:55 AM
(oh, it's also pinging on "editions." Whew, I'm not as bad as I thought.)
 
Tsk-tsk, regardless
Though it's a no-win situation. You need to signify you've made an edit for people who've already answered or are currently answering the question. Guess you could comment, and then delete it in a few days.
 
I'm trying to keep it down to one or two edits at a time, to let the "active" page stay relephant.
Otherwise I'd be seriously spamming it.
I've purged somewhere between 30 and 50 comments this afternoon and I still have 680+.
If I weren't passing over most of the ones that need to be edited into answers before they're deleted....
A gentleman here saw five rainbows at one time early Wednesday. The magnifying effects of two drinks of Kansas whiskey is surprising. KS1887
Double rainbow guy: you're adorable.
 
Oh, we're very closet to 2500 starred messages.
Close, even.
 
I like how you've edited your correction, but not the original misspelling.
 
Because not every chat method I use has up-arrow editing, instinct is just to post a second message. After that, it's just awkward to edit the original because what do I do with the correction post?
 
7:03 AM
"You will excuse me. I know I am speaking in marvelous accent without the slightest English." - Viktor Frankl
 
7:48 AM
An interesting read
 
This morning, there is a good service operating on all ley lines, leading to severe delays on all other lines.
 
self-comment editing is quite soothing :o)
 
Heheh.
I'm trying to stick mostly to flagging, and only doing a couple actual edit-into-posts every few hours.
I have purged 34 comments so far.
(Of my own, specifically. A lot of them were part of obsolete comment threads.)
 
8:03 AM
similarly
I find it amusing to be able to flag comments made by now moderators :o)
 
 
2 hours later…
10:04 AM
Can someone who knows more about Warhammer help this guy narrow down his question, please?
 
 
2 hours later…
11:46 AM
@BESW I'm not sure that is possible to be honest. What he's basically asking for is any resources that can help in running an online game
I struggle to see personally how that could be narrowed down in a meaningful way
 
So we need to narrow it down to his situation.
Not "running an online game" but "running his online game."
But I don't know Warhammer so I can't ask the right questions.
 
fair enough
 
Welcome to rpg.se! Please take a look at the about and the help center; they're a useful introduction to the site. This question is really broad, with a TON of answers that would all be equally likely to help you, and Stack Exchange is designed to handle more specific questions. I don't know Warhammer well enough to help you narrow things down, but generally the thing to do is talk more about your specific situation, challenges, needs, and concerns. — BESW 4 secs ago
 
You want a VTC until its clarified and narrowed down?
 
I've put mine in.
 
11:49 AM
same here
 
I upvoted this comment so I can't flag it as obsolete. Would someone else, please?
 
done
 
Thanks.
Two birds with one stone on that page; got rid of an EDIT and identified an obsolete comment.
I'm also racking up a little extra rep from these edit bumps, which feels a little disingenuous.
 
yeah, me too
 
I even got three badgers off the purges, including the Disciplined badger.
 
12:04 PM
I got deputy :o)
at the end of the day we're gaining badges and rep by using the site in the way we are being asked to use it, so I'm not feeling that guilty :o)
 
heh. I got Deputy last June. Might get Marshall before I'm done with my backlog...
 
[yawn]
Morning, folks.
 
Hey.
 
I just had a bunch of fun over the last ~6 hours, just reviewing spell lists with someone for an upcoming game.
 
Fun, or "fun"?
 
12:09 PM
We realized that the Create Pit line of spells only goes up to 5th level, and we hope to remedy that through spell research.
 
Making spells can be amusing.
I once made detect text for a librarian PC.
He also had a mid-level spell that was a modified silence (no sounds above a whisper) and mage hand (so he could read several books at once and turn pages with his hands free, and get books from tall shelves) combined.
I think we called it librarian's aura.
 
[blink] Wow, and create pit is 2nd-level. Need to find a way to power it down to 1st-level and cantrip-level, as well as stick on prismatic and antimagic and all that.
 
@Metool create moderate hole
or create pothole
 
Yes!
 
cantrip: create gopher hole
 
12:14 PM
(caveat emptor my D&D experience is all in 4e)
 
hero all
 
Yo.
 
@Lord_Gareth Hey, it's not awful for dips.
 
@Metool No, no, no. Don't bait him.
 
Gmorning
 
12:19 PM
It's like shooting really angry fish in a barrel.
hi.
 
@BESW That is really odd sounding out of context
 
@Aaron It's a little odd-sounding even with context.
 
1
Q: Controlling animal companion in combat

tahatmatI am a novice player who recently started playing D&D 3.5 with a group (who are also novices). In the game I am a druid, and this question relates to using the animal companion in combat. As we understand it, the druid needs to command her companion with a handle animal check. This check is a fre...

is this a duplicate?
 
@Phil I feel like we've seen that recently
 
I can't find one, but I have a vague memory
 
12:30 PM
3
Q: Are tricks the only way that I can control an animal companion?

DanielI asked a similar question the other day, but this is broader and clearer. Is there ever a circumstance where an animal companion will do something or can be controlled without a trick besides riding it?

5
Q: How do I effectively control a fresh animal companion in a way that doesn't slow down the party?

DanielWhen an animal companion first starts out, it only knows one trick. Does this mean that if I don't choose something like heel for the first bonus trick than I must attempt to "Push" my companion? Since this is likely to fail at a low level, won't this cause my companion to be abandoned or slow do...

And this one though its Pathy: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/35508/…
 
1:06 PM
Hola.
 
que tal
 
Hmm. It's a common enough Israeli name, though she isn't really known here. Never heard of her.
 
1:29 PM
If I could subtitle this answer, it would be "Why BESW Stuck With d20 Systems For Eight Years After Trying Mage For One Night."
4
43
A: Well, what is the "whiskey flask" problem with Paradox?

JadascAs with the vampire-to-lawn-chair problem, it involved Matter magick in Mage 1e. One of the examples listed of "coincidental magick" for Matter was "transmuting bullets into air" with the coincidence of "the gun was never loaded." Now, earlier examples in the book of coincidental magick in the bo...

Alternate title: "HAP\HOP\HYP|RBD/PBD, or When Doctor Seuss Did Drugs."
 
hahahaha
white wolf certianly werent good at balancing their games
 
sounds like they had trouble explaining them let alone balancing
 
oh that too
 
@JoshuaAslanSmith They always seemed to think that balance was a horrid D&Dism they were trying to avoid.
 
its almost on the level of shadowrun
 
1:38 PM
And of course, for their first editions, copy-editing was also repulsive to them.
 
They famously had multiple rules citations published as "See page XX", where they forgot to go and update the page number.
 
I have to say I am so down today, lost 2 risk legacy games last night in a row almost exactly the same way
ashes of defeat etc.
hahaha
 
To the point that in one of their splatbooks they actually put in a Page XX.
The content of which was "Because you asked for it".
 
haha
I did play a pretty fun game of hunter I think a decade or so ago as a college freshmen
this was probably do in part to me being new to rpgs in general and the fact that half the other players and the GM was a friend's hot older sister and her hot friends
 
1:41 PM
I played some Vampire when I was in highschool, but I really wouldn't want to play those games now.
They were all dark and gloomy and angsty and oh, we're doing something very deep and important here.
 
Id wan't to play those types of settings now (but with all the juvenille stuff cleaned out) using fate or dresden files
 
Though, to give them credit, they were innovating, drasitcally, in a hobby that had barely gotten over "There was a trap, you're dead, roll a new character".
 
I like a good redemption path story
 
Wow that was an awesome rant in the Good Paladins post.
 
Hm?
 
1:49 PM
@besw link?
 
Indeed.
 
0
A: Why do D&D Paladins Have to Be Lawful Good?

dustin lowerywhomever was the source of the lawful good requirement, obviously did not take into account the many possible philosophical and legal conflicts, that make it sometimes impossible, to choose the lawful option and the good option, in the same situation. in 1974, before the games rules, philosophie...

I especially like the bits where certain stats are shown to be alignment-specific.
 
Took me a while to understand that he's not going on about the potential conflict between law and good - which is the main issue that can make a paladin interesting - but about how it's unfair to require such stringent ability scores.
Though it seems he expects paladins to be lawyers, as opposed to just enforcers of law.
 
This bit has an amazing leap from in-game to meta-game, right in the middle of the "sentence":
> there are enough swords and daggers and villainy in the world to destroy him, as it is. without also making his class a 5 star feast for vicious arbitrary nitpicks.
 
I can understand his frustration, though I think he's taking it a bit personally.
 
1:54 PM
@BESW it's a good post not sure if it's a good answer
3
 
It's certainly not an answer at all.
 
yeah not an answer
 
downvote'd, vote to delete'd and flag'd
 
Ditto, except for the downvoting. I see no need for it at this time.
The -1 is sufficient to allow delete votes and convey disapproval.
And now I go bed-bed.
 
I wonder if a comment explaining why it's not a good fit for the site is in order.
 
1:57 PM
@lisardggY I already asked him to edit it so it's clear how he's answering the question at hand.
 
G'night, Baroque Effervescent Salubrious Wok.
 
I am not nearly that awesome or useful.
 
@waxeagle I saved it on my hard drive. You can delete this piece of art now, I can make copies.
 
lol, SE generally doesn't delete things permanently...unless they are private info or questions about programming on boats
 
I shall now make it my goal to hit 10k rep, so I can forever return to that question and read the rant.
 
2:11 PM
@waxeagle But they make it unaccessible to my rep
 
@Zachiel you're close
 
@waxeagle I don't even want to look at my rep count anymore. It's like asking me: "Why are you not working harder to gain more rep than anyone else on this site? Why are you never first at anything in your life?"
 
@Zachiel lol, don't sweat the rep then. KR and Mxy has us all beat there anyways
 
@BESW Fair enough. :) Granted, it's one of those first-editionisms that looks awful to us today. By modern standards, anything that came out of WW as a softcover First Edition would be looked at as a Beta Release today.
 
2:27 PM
can you colorize text in answers?
 
@JoshuaAslanSmith no
 
colors only get used for syntax highlighting where there is code
 
@JoshuaAslanSmith you could make an image with the colored text and link it. I'm sure it's not a good thing to do, but it's an option.
 
Ive posted stuff like tables that way because doing tables through markdown is a pain
 
2:39 PM
> if this post gets net-nannied, we know how is responsible.
 
If WotC sent lawyers every time someone badmouthed an element of D&D, Lord_Gareth would already be on the run from their hit-squads.
2
 
@lisardggY If WotC sent lawyers every time someone badmouthed an element of D&D, there would be no more Vampire:somethingsomething players.
 
> What's a "storytelling game?"

A roleplaying game with a colon in the title.
2
 
[snickers]
 
2:59 PM
ttfn
 
4:22 PM
1
Q: When someone updates their post with my comment, should I remove my comment?

Marc DingenaRelated: How are comments removed when they are no longer relevant? Should I remove my own comments or flag them as obsolete if my suggestion or advise is absorbed into the post on which I commented?

 
 
2 hours later…
5:59 PM
Lord almighty, front page and flag holocaust... Looks like flagging obsolete comments is happening which is good. I'd lay off on the "editing to remove edit:" for a while, no sense doing search and replace for that, do it as it comes up.
 
@Zachiel what's your high score? I got up to 1 9th Doctor and a total score of 5348
 
Also, a lot of the old q's getting surfaced are bad according to newer site standards, so don't be afraid to vote to close etc.
 
6:18 PM
I've acted on a bunch of obsolete comment flags but I left some - remember if something's highly upvoted we're reticent to remove it. Dont' be upset if some of your comment delete flags are dismissed. I've left some "please turn this into an answer" reminders that are getting some traction.
 
@waxeagle thoughts on this answer?
0
Q: shamans spirit count as me for effects?

silversocietyI am curious to know if the shaman's spirit companion is consider the same as the shaman for effects that pertain to him. In particular, if I have a power that says something like "at the start of each of your turns, any enemy adjacent to you are blank...", will the power's effect trigger if the...

 
 
1 hour later…
7:24 PM
Blimey, finding it hard to sift through all the edits going through to find any new questions and answers
 
@phil click on the questions link and then newest it orders them by newest posted question not newest activity
 
Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily pick up new answers to old questions
 
@phil are you looking for specific tags in this instance or you're just generally saying a feature that showed activity but not edits or comments in that would be nice
 
The latter
 
 
1 hour later…
8:56 PM
ssssssssomehow I drained a pot of coffee when I wasn't looking
 
9:14 PM
are you sure you didn't just drop it all over the floor and haven't realised?
 
@Phil I am now.
 
 
1 hour later…
10:37 PM
@JoshuaAslanSmith I believe that's correct, shamans are goofy though.
melee, ranged, burst (non-spirit) all are origin PC, anything with spirit keyword is origin Spirit.
I added a link to here to your answer
 
11:06 PM
@Zachiel That one made my brain hurt.
 
@BESW that's pretty cool
 
11:31 PM
@Phil I'm pretty excited about Capaldi, and I hope Moffat doesn't screw it up too bad for him.
 
11:48 PM
I'm hoping the change of lead actor will help him revitalise his writing, bringing in new ideas etc
 
That would be lovely.
But as I've said before, Moffat has two primary weaknesses and I'm not sure a new lead will really spur a change in either: he tries to explain what should be left unexplained, and he revisits the same elements/building blocks (especially with characters) too frequently and without enough change each time.
 
yeah, I've noticed that too
particularly the latter
 
It's one reason SF&F gets inundated with "IS THAT RIVER SONG TOO?" every time a new female character shows up.
 
:o)
 
As for the former, well. Moffat's strength is in emotional storytelling. If he has a choice between something making sense and being emotionally resonant, he'll always go for the emotion.
 
11:58 PM
I think that was amplified by Matt Smith being particularly strong at that kind of story line as well
 
But for some reason (I don't know where he gets it, because Doctor Who has NEVER been very interested in making sense or explaining things) he thinks he needs to provide details about the logic of whatever's going on.
 

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