10:22 PM
Welcome to chat, @Itake
I notice my points are getting confused repeatedly by you, so hopefully we can settle this a bit better here. ♪
 
Confused where?
 
@ItakeDrukqs You keep clinging to the similarity between your question and the other general strategy question, but the problem with your question, and everything else for that matter, isn't because of the general strategy part
So, I'm hoping that I can better explain what is specifically wrong with your question, and then the community here can better explain the whole issue of objectivity in this site.
 
I completely understand subjectivity and objectivity. It's not a matter of that.
 
Oh, by the way, everyone in here was retroactively drafted into helping me explain Stack Exchange. ♪
 
@Grace I asked for strategy and the things a beginner would ask a guru. The other gentleman did the same thing.
 
10:29 PM
@ItakeDrukqs You asked for two separate items
 
Okay, question stinks:
 
I'm not asking everything. I'm asking what the person answering feels like saying. Anything helpful. Anything that is helpful to a beginner. Strategy for progress. What did the other guy do? The same thing.
 
You did ask for things a beginner would ask a guru. You asked it as two questions
So, the proper thing is that you should have two separate questions - one on the strategy aspect, and leave the original one on the naming
 
The original version of the question about naming was fine and good, nothing wrong with it
 
- you're asking two questions at the same time, how to effectively name and basically "a knight ascension guide"
 
10:31 PM
We don't offer general guides here. We answer specific questions with expertise.
 
- you're asking for "any spoilers and tips", that's a list of stuff that can never be fully answered, thus bad.
 
For clarity's sake and for easier searching, it's preferred practice to only answer one question at a time.
2
 
Not asking for a full answer.
 
It makes it clearer for the person giving the answer and also makes it easier for others to find the same question.
2
 
@ItakeDrukqs You may not be asking for it, but that's how the site works
We need questions that can be fully answered :)
 
10:33 PM
So hypothetically if I want to ask thirty different questions that have simple answers that I for some reason don't know, I should flood the page with thirty questions?
Because that sings "ABUUUUUUUUSE~" to me.
 
You shouldn't ask them all at once, for starters, but it depends entirely on the nature of the questions.
 
Yeah, question farming is bad too :)
 
Well, 30 is a bit of a flood to be sure, but why not?
 
Well, one hopes that you wouldn't necessarily post all 30 in 5 minutes. :)
 
For example you could first ask about the holding buttons thing
 
10:33 PM
So I should bottleneck myself and prevent my questions getting answered because you have an arbitrary rule that says I can't ask more than one question per question?
 
Then we could answer you to press shift-direction keys.
 
That rule is not arbitrary in the least.
 
@ItakeDrukqs asking three questions one after the other is fine
 
If you have 30 legitimate questions that have not been asked yet and each of which adds value both to your play experience and to this site, then ask all 30.
 
after all it takes time to write each :)
 
10:34 PM
@badp I've established that, thanks.
 
I'm not sure I understand why you feel bottlenecked. What is there about the 1 question rule that makes you feel you wouldn't get the answer you need?
 
You can ask multiple questions at once. If you have 30 separate problems, you're fine to ask 30 separate questions.
Not asking it all at once is more of an etiquette thing, just to allow other people to have attention as well.
 
The fundamental problem, @ItakeDrukqs, is that we need to be able to vote on answers by how well they can solve your problem, and you need to be able to accept the answer that you think is the answer. If I gave you a really nice rundown of how to use names and @GraceNote gave you the ultimate guide to ascending knights, who'd get the checkmark? Who should get more votes?
 
@Brant That's exactly what we're arguing against...
 
(not like I have one really nice rundown of how to use names)
 
10:37 PM
Which, as stated by several people here, floods the site. Prevents others from getting THEIR questions answered because mine are all over the place. Common sense says it's better to have messy question pages than a messy page overall.
 
@StrixVaria It works depending on the nature of the questions
 
@StrixVaria Yeah, what I just said was pretty much not helpful at all.
 
@ItakeDrukqs This user has 63 questions. There hasn't been a problem with his question volume.
 
@ItakeDrukqs if we have to choose between those two evils, we'd rather take the spammed homepage
 
It's late afternoon and my morning coffee is long distant so maybe I should just shut up for now
 
10:37 PM
And he pretty much comes with one or two questions per day.
 
I see nothing in the FAQ regarding multiple questions
 
Oak
Whenever a new user comes and discovers the site, it's common they ask a few questions in quick succession about the game they are currently playing. There's nothing wrong with that.
 
yeah, well, the FAQ only scratches the surface :)
 
And what Brant just said has, once again, given me a different answer from a different user.
 
Well, I was trying to point out that similar questions of the same nature could be grouped.
 
10:38 PM
although:
 
The FAQ is supposed to have all the information one needs to not catch ** upon entering.
 
@ItakeDrukqs Grace and Oak are two of the most respected and influential users on the site.
 
Not "Hey do what you think is right, man!"
 
For example, instead of asking one question about naming individual objects and one question about naming a class of objects, a question about naming in general is doable
 
> You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page. -- the faq
 
10:39 PM
It comes down to getting objective answers for what you're asking. If the question you're asking is so broad that an objective answer isn't possible, that's no good.
 
@ItakeDrukqs If you heard the policy and adapted instead of needlessly resisting there wouldn't have been any "**-catching" to speak of.
 
You know what else pushes other questions off the page? Posting more than one question in more than one question page.
 
@ItakeDrukqs It's fine, really.
 
@StrixVaria I think that's a little mean, I don't see that
 
@Brant There's a reason I'm not nominating myself to be a mod.
 
10:40 PM
Or rather, posting multiple questions OUTSIDE of a single page.
 
Heh, fair enough, I'm just saying I disagree. :)
 
We don't cater to individual users. We cater to individual questions
 
Your rules basically inhibit what can be asked
 
@ItakeDrukqs The FAQ is about "frequently" asked questions, not everything ever asked about Stack Exchange -- there's a Q&A site for that. :)
 
I asked general strategy
 
10:40 PM
You're trying to see that they inhibit what can be asked to prove a point.
 
@ItakeDrukqs Yes, we believe it's too vague.
 
General strategy encompasses so many things that 99% of questions on this site would be mine if they were asked
 
I see you understand what the problem is then.
We'd rather have all the other questions.
 
Yes. The problem if it existed.
I on the other hand, made a single question.
On a subject regarding something that would require endless single question pages.
 
We'd rather have one page with the question on top and the answer right below
 
10:41 PM
You made two questions. One on general strategy, and one on naming.
 
and many questions!
and many reps!
and many votes!
and many answers!
 
Aka, e-peen
:3
 
Well, if someone wants to think of it as that, they can
 
@ItakeDrukqs :)
 
but votes/reputation also serve to help the cream rise to the top
 
10:42 PM
...
 
Anyway -- this isn't GameFAQs. Our aim isn't having the one page that tells you everything you ever wanted to know but didn't know you could ask about a topic
This is a question and answers site. You have one question, we seek to give you the one answer to it.
 
Yes, one of the incentives to participate in this site is that users are awarded rep for their participation and quality of their answers. It's a positive thing for us so we can easily sort the wheat from the chaff.
 
It's having multiple that are slightly irritating to navigate!?
 
@ItakeDrukqs sorry?
 
All I'm saying is you have a good setup here and it works. But you're cramping it to no end with the lack of opinions and subjectivity
 
10:44 PM
Way less irritating than digging through a 20-page thread about nethack strategy and trying to find the answer to a question you have.
 
Ever see the movie Equilibrium?
 
@ItakeDrukqs Subjective questions are not straight disallowed.
 
We don't seek to replace GameFAQs, merely supplement it. At GameFAQs, you can find full walkthroughs where you need to ctrl+F to find your information and/or sort through forum threads and try to glean something useful.
Here, we allow you to simply ask "Where is the Flooglenarf located?" and get an answer straightaway. No muss, no fuss.
 
I could point you towards the literature on the topic, but the short version it that it still needs to be a question we can give the one answer to.
"Please give me a list of any tips or hints that can help me ascend a knight" isn't one, I'm afraid.
 
That rule is in place due to the way rep works
Your rules revolve around rep
It's not as much about getting the correct and definitive answer as it is having a higher number next to your name
 
10:46 PM
@ItakeDrukqs No, because there was a way to have no reputation generated by questions
We had a flag we could use to say, "hey, this is a discussiony question, there's no one answer, do not generate reputation and let us edit stuff easily"
It was abused. Those questions kept getting bumped. They kept polluting the homepage day after day after day. They had a shitton of views. They got you all the cool sounding badges.
 
@ItakeDrukqs You're half right... it's about votes, not rep. The highest-voted answer to a question appears first. The best info rises to the top. How can one answer be best when the asker isn't looking for anything specific?
 
They had too many answers, many duplicates, too many comments, it was just the kind of unsightly unruly mess we're trying to avoid.
In the end it was removed.
 
tl;dr you're seriously restricting a marvelous site (and I still think it's marvelous despite complications)
@badp understood.
 
@ItakeDrukqs Yeah, but not for lack of trying.
Let me see if I can point you towards an example
 
@ItakeDrukqs If SE did not have restrictions, you'd end up with Yahoo! Answers.
 
10:49 PM
1421
Q: What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

NotMyselfIf you could go back in time and tell yourself to read a specific book at the beginning of your career as a developer, which book would it be? I expect this list to be varied and to cover a wide range of things. EDIT: Before adding a another book/answer, please search for it first and upvote ...

 
I know it seems horribly arbitrary, but the traditions and conventions were formed and tested on a site that has orders of magnitude more traffic and activity than us (stack overflow) and they were found necessary.
 
Yeah, it's your site and you can do what you want with it, have who you want on it and enforce any rule you want no matter how ridiculous. And I'm all for rules and order and civilization but sometimes there is a such thing as too many rules. And in this case it's to the point where anything short of fact can't exist here.
 
One thousand four hundred twenty one upvotes, locked protected chained and drowned.
@ItakeDrukqs Yes, the system is complex, that's why we're trying to not expose you to all its finer details. Please trust us when we tell you that this question, as it is, isn't good :)
 
@ItakeDrukqs Which is kind of the point of a Q&A site.
 
We're also telling you how to make it better.
 
10:51 PM
@ArdaXi I'm not saying don't have restrictions. You need rules for anything to survive. I'm saying you have a few that happen to be void of logic.
 
It's not a poll and opinion site, it's a question and answer site.
 
anyway:
9
Q: One post with multiple questions or multiple posts?

deamonI want to ask several questions about the same problem domain but each question is independent from the others. Should I put all the questions in a single post or should I split them and send multiple posts?

 
We want answers to questions, not opinions. Forums are better suited for that.
 
1
Q: Multi-Question Questions: How Best to Handle Them?

gnostradamusSometimes I come across a question on SO that is actually a number of questions all in one. If these "sub-questions" are closely related, it's not a problem. But if they are only weakly related (or not at all) it gets ugly. I'm now (ironically or hypocritically) going to ask a few questions of m...

etc.
oh, and:
 
@ArdaXi Oh. Where's the forum?
@ArdaXi No forum? Didn't think so.
 
10:52 PM
@ItakeDrukqs Well, this serves as our forum.
 
@ArdaXi There is NO subjectivity.
 
Aye... exactly, we don't have a forum
We're not supposed to be a forum
 
@ItakeDrukqs Here the problem isn't subjectivity indeed.
 
In the traditional 'meet up after work and talk about stuff' sense of the word, this (chat) is our forum.
 
Look, @ItakeDrukqs, we're wasting more time discussing how you should ask than we'd have spent actaully answering your question
 
10:53 PM
Except for Arda, who's only a teenager
 
how about you let us help you? :)
We want to answer your question
That's why we're investing time putting it into shape.
 
@badp No, you wasted MY time explaining the rules than answering. Quod erat demonstrandum.
 
@ItakeDrukqs You said they were meaningless. I tried to show you the meaning.
 
Make your FAQ longer and more clear and give ANSWERS to QUESTIONS instead of lectures concerning the rules
 
@GraceNote Alright, while I'm usually on-board with putting me down, I'm not sure what that meant.
@ItakeDrukqs Your QUESTION was ANSWERed, was it not?
 
10:55 PM
@ArdaXi You can't meet up after work if you don't have a day job
 
@ItakeDrukqs We're trying to help you but you're refusing our help.
 
@ArdaXi The one being discussed right now? No.
I'm not refusing anything.
 
@GraceNote Well, I pretty much do, and school counts as work for me.
 
@ItakeDrukqs You're not accepting it either...
 
@ItakeDrukqs Which is, again? (I might not have been paying full attention)
 
10:56 PM
Accepting what?
"YES SIR I AGREE SIR"
 
I thought the question was about Nethack's naming.
 
Our help in asking your question.
 
Is that what you expect?
 
We don't expect blind allegience, no
 
Your site is already completely void of subjectivity, opinion and now that I get a glance first-hand, emotion.
 
10:56 PM
@ItakeDrukqs No, or I wouldn't have invested time explaining to you why things are the way they are
 
The whole point was to teach you the process. If I wanted to just fix the question up without helping you, I'd have just rolled back your edit instantly.
 
@GraceNote allegiance to whom?
 
I would've expected "Oh, I see, I guess then I'll try and improve my question then"
 
@ItakeDrukqs Do note that everything I say is my own opinion, not that of the community, but that's how I think it should be.
 
@badp A cop can arrest someone and explain their rights to them. It's no different than that.
 
10:57 PM
@Fabian We don't expect blind allegience to anyone.
 
moves the Godwin clock forward five minutes
 
@ItakeDrukqs Unlike cops, we don't have obligations towards you. We can help you, but you've got to help yourself.
 
@GraceNote So we have to think for ourselves ?!?. That's too much work for me
 
As it is, without your cooperation, that question gets either reverted to revision 1 and answered, or gets closed and not answered
 
The whole "our FAQ only scratches the surface!!111" thing is what leads users here and it's why you're arranged in a council-like fashion explaining this to me. I'm just some random user. I don't matter THIS much to you people. It's not a matter of making User #3847238947329874 understand all the rules and do better next time. It's a power trip.
Then close it.
By now I could know whether or not God exists.
 
10:59 PM
... and it's better to explain to someone what's going on rather than just brusquely closing the question and leaving them even more confused, which is what is was an attempt to do.
 
Christ.
 
@ItakeDrukqs You do matter to us. We want to answer your question. Christ.
 
@ItakeDrukqs It's not a power trip at all. It's just a bunch of people trying to help you.
 
You do matter this much to us. We want people to stick around and contribute to the site.
 
Case in point.
 
11:00 PM
All we've done is talk, we haven't closed the question, removed it, edited it...
 
You either do this for no one, or you do it for every single user and it makes you feel good about yourself.
That's a fact.
 
Well...yeah, it does feel pretty good to help.
2
 
Maybe to some of you.
 
We're here to help, we're run by the community
 
But to most of you it's a sense of power.
 
11:01 PM
I for one do it for the good of the site itself.
 
It's a feeling of control, a feeling you cannot get anywhere else.
 
New users contribute to make our site grow
 
@ItakeDrukqs Nobody has used any power, except that of free speech.
 
Look, I'm not here to get a free insanity check by random people on the internet
 
The only way a community can improve itself is when something challenges it.
 
11:02 PM
Later, please get what you want
 
@ItakeDrukqs I think that is frankly, a bit out of line. Everyone here has good intentions, believe it or not
 
Later, @badp
 
oh maaaaaaaan. I tried to take a break from studying psychology by coming here.
 
Oak
@badp is that how a future mod behaves? :)
 
I'm afraid I don't understand what brings you to that point of view, but I'm heading home for now.
 
11:02 PM
@Oak You know how to stop me :)
 
@badp Quit that. You're a far better candidate than I am.
 
Oak
@badp you're a room owner! You can already moderate!
 
The reason you have all these rules, they're for efficiency to answer questions as accurately and quickly as possible, correct?
The ones I believe to be irrational, that is.
 
@ItakeDrukqs Efficiency, order, that kind of thing I suppose.
 
Mostly, yes.
 
11:03 PM
The "NO DISCUSSION" part.
 
@ItakeDrukqs They are also to make questions and answers as clean and helpful as possible to the next person who happens to find that page
 
To keep the questions from degrading into "360 sux, get ps3"
 
@Oak There's no better moderation than talking right now, given that apparently this whole discussion is a massive power trip on our behalf :)
 
@ItakeDrukqs We all care about this site, about the success and the quality of gaming.SE. And vague and subjective questions don't help this site. That is the reason why we are so hard on suboptimal questions.
 
Oak
@badp sometimes you need to suspend users, sometimes you need to delete answers or lock questions.
 
11:04 PM
@ArdaXi I avoid that whole endeavor by being a PC user. Consoles are tiny gimped PCs. :3
 
@Oak Luckily I can't do any of that, all I can do is switch back to Eclipse and continue coding
 
Oak
@badp but I'm just teasing you :) good night!
 
@ItakeDrukqs Quod erat demonstrandum.
 
@ArdaXi You left your sarcasm detector off.
 
@ItakeDrukqs If you are interested in discussing those "irrational" rules, we can do it. If you aren't, then don't ask for explanation then complain that it isn't all explained to you in the finest detail.
 
11:05 PM
@ItakeDrukqs Unfortunately, this is what would happen on the site without those rules you find irrational.
 
lol!
I love it!
 
hahah oh man me too bro hugs
 
Honestly, if you care this much (judging by the time you've invested already, you do) open up a topic on our meta site.
 
Explain something irrelevant to someone, then tell them they're complaining when they don't agree with what you're explaining.
It's like I explain something to you, and then randomly shout "GRAAOWWW DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT MAILBOXES"
 
@ItakeDrukqs You're still here of your own accord, aren't you?
 
11:07 PM
Once again, it's a sense of power
I'm here to prove that it's about a feeling of power
 
@ItakeDrukqs What kind of power do you mean, anyway?
 
Which I've just already successfully done
And with that...
 
@ItakeDrukqs According to you, you have.
 
and with that it's time to clean up this mess.
 
@ItakeDrukqs I can't even really tell what you're complaining about here, except apparently that we have personal issues
 
11:08 PM
If all you care about is being right in your original opinion, there is honestly no reason to continue a debate.
 
According to you, this site is Q&A and not discussion
According to me, the moon is a sock
See how that works?
Peace kiddo
 
Have a good evening.
 
Except we, together, decide what the site should be.
 
Go get wasted, you sound like you need to.
 
Later, @Itake ♪
 
11:10 PM
@I take Druqs We're all here 'cause we're convinced that the SE principles work well here for our gaming site. Most of us here don't have enough power to be on any kind of power trip ;-).
 
249 messages moved from The Bridge
1 message moved from The Bridge
 
His whole thing's just so confusing to me.
 
1 message moved from The Bridge
 
yeah...
 
I feel like he runs around claiming that we have a power trip to feel like he's in power over us or something
 
11:12 PM
it must be exhausting, being that irritable
 
again I say
> ...
 
I wonder how many times he rehearsed that exit in his head :(
 
I appreciate how reasonable, coherent and helpful you all are, @GamingChatRegulars
 
user30
I don't know where the argument is more ridiculous. Here or Question Time.
 
@sjohns clearly you mean me, the most reasonable, coherent and helpful of them all
> hahah oh man me too bro hugs
 
11:14 PM
@sjohnston tripping over a very low bar?
 
user30
Okay, despite all the heated discussion here, definitely QT.
 
@Mana so huggy...
 
So let's revert the question to revision 1 if he hasn't already deleted it?
Oak did that already. Cool.
 
@sjohns Whenever I encounter someone who acts particularly uptight on the internet I try to defuse the situation by acting really chummy
 
@Mana Was I being uptight? I thought I was just exceptionally huggable
 
11:17 PM
oh, no, I hugged uh what's his face
Drugz. :|
 
> He professed to hate fanaticism, yet was himself a fanatic on the topic of toleration.
 
I bet he would have been less confrontational if he had a unicorn avatar. That should be a mod power. Big button that unicornifies a user.
2
 
Speaking of, where's that unicorn gravatar thing? I want to see what his would look like.
 
unicornify.appspot.com
 
@Mana Saying rude things about people out loud to make yourself feel less insecure is good times.
Now I'm done here.
umad
peace :3
 
11:21 PM
:3
He totally got me :(
 
@ItakeDrukqs ugh
It's sickening how rude we are
 
Yeah you're right
here I did a rude thing
 
Ah. Soothing unicorns.