The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Well, stripping it down to its essentials it's basically just asking what the status of someone in such a contraption would be, vis-a-vis laws that are dependent on someone being dead. And it gave a particular example of such a law.

Jenayah

from what I got, what if a kid died because his dad died too and couldn't save him?

Alex

Eh, not quite. The case is a particular law of marriages that is dependent on whether the husband is alive and whether he has any living kids. The question is asking if either the husband or the kid was Schroedinger's Cat, would they be considered alive or dead for the purposes of this marriage law?

Jenayah

12:21 AM

... oO

how about not turning into a cat and not crawling into boxes in the first place

solved :P

Alex

@Jenayah That's an old joke about some of the hypothetical questions in Judaism.

Jenayah

oh right didn't you once told me there was a joke about Judaism answering questions with more questions?

Alex

I don't know if I told you that, but that's certainly a Jewish stereotype.

Jenayah

mmmh maybe I saw it on Mi Yodeya meta then

or main Mi Yodeya

Alex

Well someone mentioned that as part of an answer to one on my Meta questions.

Which I have linked here before.

So you might have seen that.

2

A: Average number of comments per post: Mi Yodeya vs the rest of the Stack Exchange Network

I'm not sure if it is a good thing or not but I can think of 3 reasons this is so: Jews love to argue. You probably heard about the journalist who asked a rabbi "Why do Jews always answer a question by another question?" - answered the rabbi "Why not?" ! more seriously, since the bar for answer...

Jenayah

12:26 AM

yep, rings a bell

11

Q: Deleting files containing G-d's Name / taking the host device into the bathroom

Is there any issue regarding deleting electronic files with G-d's Name in them? Also, is there any issue with taking such a device into the bathroom?

^ what's the bathroom problem?

I mean the deleted files I have a vague idea but even upon reading the answer the bathroom art isn't really clear

Alex

@Jenayah That was on the list?

Jenayah

@Alex no, it was linked on a question that was linked on a question that was linked in an answer to your question :P

Alex

@Jenayah Which one of my questions?

Jenayah

the meta just above

Alex

In any case, the issue under discussion is whether a digital representation of God's name is similar to an actual written version of God's name.

There are certain laws about treating God's name respectfully, and a bathroom was considered a disrespectful place.

Jenayah

12:33 AM

ah, so the guy is asking whether it's okay to have, say, a phone with a PDF Torah in it, tcuked in your pocket when you're in the bathroom?

Alex

Yes, that's what it sounds like to me.

Well not specifically a Torah, but that would be an example of something that would have God's name in it.

Jenayah

yeah I guess the texts are a bit ancient to be clear on such a matter...

Alex

@Jenayah That's one issue. Another issue is that "bathrooms" may not be the same to us as they were to ancients.

Jenayah

ah yeah I said Torah because I basically know only the Torah and the Talmud when it comes to Jewish texts :)

And Gersonides and his brother, of course :D

Alex

@Jenayah Well, as those are basically the two most important, you're good to go.

Jenayah

12:36 AM

neat

Alex

Alleged brother, until I can read that French book to be sure.

Jenayah

weren't you considering buying an ebook or stuff?

I thought it was like 6$?

or am I mistaking with something else?

Alex

I considered buying the actual book. It actually just went up in price. It's now about $18 whereas it used to be something like $16.

Jenayah

ah, bit higher than I remembered

Alex

Perhaps I'll find it in a library.

Jenayah

12:40 AM

Can't you do the opposite? Ask the library to buy it?

Alex

Maybe? But I doubt most libraries that I would frequent would be interested in such a book.

Perhaps I'll come to France in search of it.

Though that would be more expensive than buying the book.

Jenayah

Ah, so you have to find, like, a scholar library which is focused on Jewish texts rather than broader literature

@Alex eh, you tell me if you ever come here. If we're in the same city I'll buy you a coffee :)

Alex

@Jenayah And it's a French Jewish text, so that knocks out most of the Jews who'd be interested.

@Jenayah That's a nice offer.

Jenayah

@Alex so a very focused library - or perhaps even a synagogue?

Alex

Well I have yet to find it in any of the synagogues I've been to.

Maybe a French synagogue.

Another problem is that it's about philosophy.

So even someone who's interested in Judaism and in French, will likely still not care for it.

Jenayah

12:48 AM

talk about a niche topic :P

Alex

Yep. It's kind of like being an expert in dramione.

Jenayah

I'm not sure how one would compare a weird Harry Potter fanfiction pairing with 200+ years old French Jewish philosophy, but alright

Alex

@Jenayah You're right, the first one is way more popular.

Jenayah

riiight... May I suggest not asking about dramione in a Jewish scholar library, though :)

Alex

Suggestion duly noted.

Mithrandir

1:16 AM

@Jenayah <vague gesture that indicates that I crossed it out>

Jenayah

eheh

Alex

1:32 AM

Oh, is sleepposting a thing?

Jenayah

for Mith it is

nighttime pings and all of that :P

Slartibartfast

0

Q: RIP William Morgan Sheppard: Star Trek, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Max Headroom, many more

Genre actor W. Morgan Sheppard, veteran of several franchises, died yesterday. Just some of his better known genre roles: Ira Graves (Data's grandpa), TNG: "The Schizoid Man" The Klingon Commandant of Rura Penthe, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country The Rogue Soul Hunter in Babylon 5: So...

discussion in-memoriam

Alex

I guess it’s a good excuse if you ever post something bad.

Jenayah

mh?

oh, ahah

Stormblessed

@Jenayah I don't think so

Alex

1:35 AM

@Jenayah If you’ve never posted something bad, you won’t understand.

Stormblessed

Not much rep/don't really have much to use it on anyway

scifi.stackexchange.com/tags/dan-brown

The tag dan-brown should join the nuke list

The only question under it is locked and his books are not sci-fi

At least according to this site

Jenayah

@Stormblessed said question has an historical lock, let's keep it I'd say. At least it points towards "nope, off-topic but historical matter etc"

hey isn't there a meta about this very one?

sec

2

Q: Shall we delete this old, off-topic but highly viewed, question?

This question was recently bumped by edits: In what order should I read the Robert Langdon books? At first I was going to delete it because it's off-topic for our site, but then I saw the incredibly high view count, meaning that (like many suggested-order questions) it's being useful to drive-by ...

discussion specific-question deleted-questions

Stormblessed

@Jenayah But the tag is useless

Doesn't improve the question and might lead to more questions about those off-topic books

Jenayah

@Stormblessed if new, off-topic questions are asked, they'll get closed and deleted/migrated to Literature

Stormblessed

@Jenayah But why do we need the tag?

What name order does this site use for Japanese authors?

Doe John or John Doe?

Jenayah

1:46 AM

So that people who think "hey, I wonder if they talk about Dan Brown here?" get to that question with the big fat yellow banner reading "yeah, that would normally get closed and deleted, but we've kept this one since it has historical significance"

@Stormblessed ah, I think I asked something about this a while ago (Chinese author, though, but probably the same issue)

sec

Stormblessed

@Jenayah I vaguely remember that

Jenayah

Nov 29 '18 at 4:19, by Jenayah

What's our stance on Chinese names? the-three-body-problem has Liu Cixin, remembrance-of-earths-past has Cixin Liu. Is there a more official/respectful order?

Stormblessed

What happens if a question is asked in a different language here for some reason?

Jenayah

Nov 29 '18 at 7:42, by Mithrandir

@Jenayah As long as it's possible, we should probably stick to the Chinese order - it's more "correct" for that name.

@Stormblessed OP will be asked to translate it into English, and it will be put on hold (probably as "unclear what you're asking") until they do so. Most sites on the network are required to use English, except for a couple of fully-other-language stacks (SO in Spanish, Japanese, etc) and the "languages" sites; French and Latin for instance can be asked either in French/Latin, or English, or both (preferrably)

SFF doesn't fall under that category so stick to English

Stormblessed

scifi.stackexchange.com/tags/resident-evil-revelations

Why is this its own tag?

It's for a series that already has a tag and only has one question under it

Jenayah

1:51 AM

We have a lot of single-used work tags

Stormblessed

@Jenayah Even for series?

Jenayah

basically the idea (mine, at least) is while the tag is still young and not very used, make sure to have a franchise tag and work tags, this way when it grows bigger you won't have to re-edit a bunch of old posts with franchise tags

I spent 25 days retagging Stargate questions which were missing the stargate tag

If this had been done earlier, no one would have had to :P

Nov 27 '18 at 6:34, by Jenayah

Aaaaand with that, folks, after 25 days of work, stargate clean-up is finished :D

Stormblessed

What's that word for change canon later in a story (like DC)?

Jenayah

(I'm currently distilling Highlander questions lacking the franchise tag between missing or mistaken episode-identification questions, so that the homepage isn't cluttered with Highlander)

@Stormblessed retconning?

Stormblessed

@Jenayah Thanks, that's it

b_jonas

1:55 AM

@Jenayah I don't think they're required to use English in any real sense.

Jenayah

@b_jonas what do you mean? As far as I know SFF should always use English

Stormblessed

@Jenayah That would make sense

But maybe it's not defined

Very unlikely it would happen accidentally

b_jonas

@Stormblessed We first try to assume that it's a benevolent user who is asking in a language they know better and that they're so bad in English that if they asked in English we'd have less chance to understand the question than if they ask in whatever language it is, and try to answer it properly like a normal question, possibly adding a translation of the question as best we can, because such a translation helps us answer, and helps future readers who may want to ask the same question.

But we deal with the question on its own merit, and if it's a bad question, then we downvote it because of that, and not because it's not asked in English. Or so I think, but some people apparently think otherwise.

Jenayah

I approved pre-crisis as it's a good excerpt for now but as it's basically "every DC comic published between 1940 and 1980", I'll porbably nuke it as it's, well, broad. Thanks for bringing it to others' attention :)

b_jonas

@Jenayah I don't understand in what sense it's required. Is there an authority that would require that? Is there something in the SE terms of service or code of conduct that I've missed? The OotS forum does have such a rule, but that's about the only site where I've really seen one. As for how we treat such questions on Sci Fi, it's for us, the community, to determine and define, and possibly debate in Meta.

Jenayah

1:59 AM

287

A: Do posts have to be in English on Stack Exchange?

tl;dr: Unless you're posting on a language-related site (e.g. French Language) or a site where all questions are expected to be in a different language (e.g. Stack Overflow in Spanish), yes, all posts are expected to be in English. A special case exists for the Russian language; see below. W...

^ main meta

19

A: Must questions be asked in English?

Yes, all questions must be asked in English. If you are having trouble with a particular word or phrase, you might be able to get help with it on the English Language Learners SE site.

^ SFF meta, answered by a mod, I think this counts as authority

b_jonas

@Jenayah Nice SO-centric answer. Mind you, it makes much more sense on SO, whose topic is programming, and most of the programming material available out there is already in English. Most of the programmers already have to learn English.

Jenayah

@b_jonas hence why I linked the SFF meta one afterwards :)

b_jonas

But our topic isn't programming, or research mathematics, it's Sci Fi.

@Jenayah Yes. I know that there are some who disagree with that policy, and try to excise non-English questions. I don't think that's a good idea.

Jenayah

Well, they will get closed anyway...

b_jonas

@Jenayah Closed, then possibly edited, then reopened. Happens every day.

Jenayah

2:05 AM

oh, that, sure. But editors shouldn't translate the question

b_jonas

@Jenayah Huh what? Why not, if it's a good and on-topic question?

Jenayah

Fixing "bad" English is okay (and encouraged), translating it isn't editor's responsibility, per my understanding of main meta.

b_jonas

@Jenayah It's not anyone's responsibility, sure.

Jenayah

> What should I do if someone else makes a post that is not in English?

[...]

If it's not spam, vote or flag to close it as "unclear what you're asking" if it's a question, or flag as "very low quality" if it's an answer.

Should I translate wrong-language posts?

No, it is not necessary to translate wrong-language posts. Machine translations (e.g. Google Translate) can be inaccurate, and even human translations risk distorting the intended meaning of the question. It's up to the author to make sure that their post fits the quality standards of the site; if they don't, it reduces their ch…

b_jonas

We're not payed for improving question, and I too have a dayjob that I spend much more time on than on SE.

@Jenayah Wouldn't that be a double standard with how we sometimes try to improve posts if they do contain an interesting question in their core but the OP didn't ask it properly?

Jenayah

2:08 AM

You shouldn't translate it. On the other hand, if OP doesn't translate it either, neve rcomes back etc, feel free to translate it and post it as your own,with a hat tip to non-English user

b_jonas

Even that only said it's "not necessary".

Jenayah

@b_jonas not necessarily, the premise for that is that it was asked in "poor" English, but still understandable enough English so that itcan be reworded into a great question

b_jonas

@Jenayah I don't see why not. If the OP doesn't like the translation, they can still chime in. Obviously you may have to make it clear if you don't understand some of the question and are guessing about it and might not be what OP meant, but then you do the same in editing questions that are in English.

Jenayah

@b_jonas OP might not understand the translation to begin with.

b_jonas

@Jenayah Yes, and it's nice if the OP knows enough English to get the meaning through in what you'd call "poor" English.

@Jenayah Yes, he might not. Then you could use comments or whatever to ask them to clarify.

But perhaps that's not even necessary, because they asked a perfectly understandible question in some other language.

Jenayah

2:11 AM

@b_jonas I didn't meant for that to be offensive, hence the quotation marks, but couldn't think of a more politically correct word than "poor"

b_jonas

And they still enjoy reading Sci Fi or watching Sci Fi movies, and were just unlucky enough to be just a few years older than me and having had to learnt Russian for 16 years from bad teachers, rather than English.

Jenayah

@b_jonas that makes you take the role of a translator between "the others" and OP though. Not really great :/ everyone should be able to interact with anyone else, and that goes through lingua franca

b_jonas

I'm quite sure that there are a lot of people like that, both because of demographics, and because of Economy: surely if everyone already knew enough English, we wouldn't have all the superhero films dubbed in the cinemas instead of just captioned in Hungarian.

@Jenayah Yes, it would be a nice world if we could all understand all other humans. Perhaps you should write a sci fi or fantasy book about such a world.

Jenayah

I'm not saying that the questions are necessarily bad, just that it's expected to be in English, just like I can't turn in my internship report in Spanish even if I wante dto

@b_jonas that last sentence of mine was meant to be only in the context of SE, but agreed, it was unclearly written (comme quoi... :) )

b_jonas

@Jenayah Your internship report is judged by one or a few pre-selected individuals, not by any passer-by on a large website with hundreds of active users.

Jenayah

2:17 AM

point taken

Alex

Ironically, I have an answer on Mi Yodeya about the perils of translation.

b_jonas

And when we have seminars about research in our university, it's not decided a priori what language they're held in. We make allowances for both the presenter and the audience. By the time they spend like at least four years in the university, most of us mathematicians do learn enough English to be able to give a talk in it. If such a presenter gives a talk, then he will give it in Hungarian iff all the people who arrived understands Hungarian, but English if even one of them don't.

However, a few Hungarian speakers are blessed with such bad language skills that it's better if they give talks in Hungarian, because we wouldn't understand them if they talked in English. So those people always talk in Hungarian. And of course, we have enough people, often guests, who don't speak any Hungarian, so they always talk in English, and some of them talk in broken English of course.

This is about seminars for graduate students; most of the ordinary lectures for MsC students and all of them for BsC students are in Hungarian, except the classes specifically in English study programs, which don't exist in mathematics on our uni, but does exist in CS, and exists in even higher number over on SOTE.

Jenayah

@Buzz take it lightly with the edits, you're way above the "5 posts out of the first 15 edited by same user" rule of thumb :)

b_jonas

Which is just as well, because most students of my age didn't yet speak enough English when they started BsC to study most classes in English. This is changing rapidly, mind you.

Alex

My head is buzzing from looking at the homepage.

2

b_jonas

2:22 AM

The internet makes studying English much more accessible for the younger generation.

Jenayah

@b_jonas definitely

b_jonas

I have no idea how this works in France, or anywhere else over the iron curtain. David Madore once mentioned off-hand that perhaps he should write a short writeup about language use in education in France (he's a mathematician, so I'd be interested), but he hasn't yet done that.

Alex

If the topic is complex and nuanced, I'd rather have a lecturer speak in his native language that I don't understand and have a good translator, than have the speaker speak in English.

Jenayah

meh such a waste... all these bumped question could use a fatter edit than just a media tag

b_jonas

madore.org/cgi-bin/comment.pl/… since my description of what he said is probably not quite accurate.

Jenayah

2:25 AM

boy yet another set

b_jonas

> I'll have to write something someday about the use of English vs. French in post-secondary education in France, and the debate it causes, but for now let me just say that in the cases I saw, the thesis defence was in French, but often with slides in English, and the written thesis is often part English part French (typically in English but with a long introduction in French).

Alex

Really buzzing now...

Jenayah

yeah...

Alex

That's the entire homepage when logged out.

Jenayah

@Buzz not to sound preachy but if you're bumping 15 (!) questions in a row could you please fix them entirely? Like almost all of them have redundant "Identify/Seeking for/I remember a book" in the title which isn't helpful (per this meta: scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/6453/98028), pretty much all the pictures in the answers lack an alternative text for screen readers/accessibility purposes etc and I guess there are some rogue HTTP in there

Alex

2:32 AM

Jenoogle = Jepreachy.

Jenayah

^ don't take it too hard, if I sound a little bit irked tis because I kind of am, to be honest. Not the biggest deal of course but y'know...

Alex

I was joking.

Jenayah

(also @b_jonas I didn't mean to blank you out. It's a long debate I guess, but one that will have to wait a bit more... Bed shouldn't be too soon from now on ;) )

@Alex I wasn't :/

Alex

I know.

b_jonas

@Jenayah Don't worry, this is not because of something you've done. It's just a topic I'm passionate enough about.

Jenayah

2:35 AM

@Alex by the way chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/48402278#48402278 wasn't directed at you , just so we're clear

b_jonas

But not something that I'm currently doing much about in practice.

Alex

@Jenayah Ah, that explains things.

I guess I should stop assuming that I'm so important.

b_jonas

And on Sci Fi in particular, it rarely seems to happen anyway. I can barely remember any questions asked in a language other than English, except for ones that would be deleted regardless of the language it's asked in.

Alex

@b_jonas There was one recently. Or at least one that I saw recently.

b_jonas

Let me look in the moderation tools. Any hint to make it easier to find?

Jenayah

2:40 AM

there, bumped the newest three asked ones back up with pointless edits so that they do get the attention they deserve

Alex

@b_jonas I don't remember what it was. I just recall a comment from Valorum pointing out that it should be in English.

Jenayah

@b_jonas yeah, drop the moderation tools and search for chat. MArvin will have the text even if had been deleted since

b_jonas

@Jenayah Yeah, that makes sense.

Jenayah

TBH the only "question" I've seen in a non-English language here was Korean spam

there were a couple of Portuguese answers but no questions

Alex

@Jenayah Unless it was deleted before Marvin posted it.

Jenayah

2:42 AM

@Alex for legit non-spam questions, it shouldn't

Alex

True.

And I probably wouldn't have seen it if it was deleted.

Jenayah

you only get the newest questions from chat?

Alex

No.

In fact I have Marvin ignored.

Jenayah

same

meh Satrtiblahblah and XKCD are the only feeds I kept

b_jonas

@Alex Mind you, Valorum is suspended from chat, so I don't think she commented lately.

Alex

2:44 AM

@b_jonas The comment wasn't in chat.

Jenayah

I think Alex meant a comment comment

b_jonas

Oh. Then it'll be harder to find in chat.

Alex

@Jenayah I have all of them except Marvin, because the other ones don't post often enough to be intrusive.

Jenayah

I thought you were looking for non-English questions?

Alex

Well, Babelfish is getting there.

Jenayah

2:44 AM

Babelfish is spoilery

Alex

@Jenayah I probably won't ever watch most of the things it mentions, and if I ever do I will probably have long forgotten what Babelfish spoiled.

Jenayah

I won't :)

Alex

Well you might if you would focus more on your school lectures...

Jenayah

hey! D:

Alex

Sorry.

Jenayah

2:47 AM

Not my fault if my brain remembers useless unsollicited stuff

b_jonas

Ok, I can't find it, and it's late, I have to go to bed.

Jenayah

g'night!

Alex

I'm pretty sure it's morning.

Jenayah

sshhh

Niffler

500 rep on lit = cast close and reopen votes, on sff 3000 xD

Alex

2:53 AM

That's Beta for you.

Jenayah

isn't it even more on SO?

nevermind, it's not

tag creation is at 1500 though

Niffler

thats why i do love lit /betas

Alex

I actually read the first answer that I somewhat understood on Stack Overflow yesterday.

Jenayah

harder to gain rep there though... less people

oh yeah? Which was it? :)

Niffler

stack overflow is just brain seizures for me :(

Jenayah

2:56 AM

Stack Overflow will have greatly contributed to my diploma...

Alex

29451

A: Why is it faster to process a sorted array than an unsorted array?

You are a victim of branch prediction fail. What is Branch Prediction? Consider a railroad junction: Image by Mecanismo, via Wikimedia Commons. Used under the CC-By-SA 3.0 license. Now for the sake of argument, suppose this is back in the 1800s - before long distance or radio communication...

The example was great.

Jenayah

oh, yes. This is a very good answer indeed!

Niffler

crap 29541

D:

jeezus luisus

Alex

@Jenayah I mean, I have no idea if it's right or anything, but it was very well explained.

@Niffler It's the highest scoring answer.

At least according to a Meta post.

Niffler

whats the highest on sf

Jenayah

2:58 AM

@Alex oh it is most definitely right

Alex

@Jenayah I'll take your word for it.

Jenayah

392

A: Story where the number 3 is the monster?

The story is "The Homework Horror" by Greg Cox. It was originally printed in Amazing Stories, Volume 62, Issue 1, but was reprinted in Bruce Coville's Book of Nightmares II: More Tales to Make You Scream, which is probably where you read it. The evil number in the book is 5, not 3. Five st...

Alex

And the thirty thousand upvotes.

Jenayah

@Alex it's also probably the highest scoring question.

Niffler

392 vs 29541

:thonking:

Alex

2:59 AM

@Jenayah That gut can practially have 10,000 reputation just from one post.

Niffler

great emoji right there by the way

Jenayah

Yes, but... The answer above has the highest bounty sum of the whole network :)

Alex

@Jenayah It is, according to the same Meta post.

Jenayah

@Alex he only has one post. That one.

Alex

Wow.

Jenayah

3:00 AM

guy's a legend

Alex

I guess it's a good thing a gold tag badge also requires 200 answers.

Jenayah

well it's sometimes way easier to cash in score, but hard to have questions to answer

Alex

Indeed.

Jenayah

by the way, the story-id above? None of these votes came from HNQ since it was answered years after

Alex

But if you're persistent enough you can post 200 mediocre answers.

Jenayah

3:02 AM

Well obviously it's linked on several main meta posts but still :^)

@Alex which might get VLQ-deleted

Alex

They can be good enough to avoid that.

Jenayah

meh if you're going to put in effort might as well write something to be proud of

Alex

Sure, I'm not saying someone would deliberately post mediocre content when they could post good content. I'm saying that if someone has no good content to post, they can still get a gold badge with mediocre content and persistence.

Jenayah

sure

Alex

And the top answer on Mi Yodeya is <100 as there has never been a Great answer badge awarded.

Jenayah

3:05 AM

literally everything can be gamed

@Alex well then what are you waiting for? Start typing :)

Alex

@Jenayah I have two answers that are almost Good Answers...

22 and 20.

Jenayah

never got a good answer there? :o

Alex

Nope. there's only been 108 of those.

Jenayah

woah

Alex

Both of mine that are close were voted the best answers of their respective quarters (one was a tie), so I don't think it's because they're not good enough.

Jenayah

3:09 AM

get more people involved in Mi Yodeya then

Alex

Dec 23 '18 at 22:01, by Jenayah

Aug 17 at 20:08, by Jenayah

@Alex FWIW, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing "non-content" activity on a site where I don't understand 30-40% of the words being used, even if it's to fix English grammar errors on the ones I do understand

Jenayah

I meant people who have a clue of what's going on and can vote accordingly

Alex

(Shame you didn't quote me quoting it on October 4th. Then it would be triple nested.)

Stormblessed

@Alex Wow. 22413 upvotes on the question...

Alex

@Stormblessed Quite scary indeed.

Jenayah

3:12 AM

@Stormblessed and viewed 1,3 million times, and I don't think that's the most seen one on SO.

Stormblessed

@Jenayah What's HNQ?

Jenayah

Hot Network Questions

the questions on the right

Stormblessed

@Jenayah How are those chosen? Randomly? Recent views/votes?

Jenayah

194

Q: What formula should be used to determine "hot" questions?

Right now the front page Popular tab is fairly broken -- it's a simple descending sort by views. As Joel said in podcast #18, it is "a self-fulfilling prophecy." But this is not intentional, it's only because we haven't had time to improve it yet! As I sit down to write a better algorithm, I tho...

discussion stackexchange-button hot-questions algorithm

90

Q: How do the "arbitrary hotness points" work on the new Stack Exchange home page and in the sidebar on questions?

I really like the new Stack Exchange home page, where certain questions from the Stack Exchange Network are presented, along with a hotness rating that is described as "arbitrary" in its tooltip. Such questions also appear randomly on the sidebar on questions across the network, under the heading...

support stackexchange.com hot-questions

Basically it takes into account the nulber of UVs on questions and answers, if several answers are posted fast on the same question, if question starts gaining a lot of views etc

then its decay depends on it still generating views and votes

more or less

Alex

Basically, it's self-perpetuating.

Jenayah

3:17 AM

it has its good sides, and it has its damn flaws

Alex

And usually dominated by the non-technical sites.

Neo Darwin

Stack overflow is based on searching for previously asked questions

Jenayah

hmmm... There are a lot of Server Fault, SO, Ask Ubuntu etc on those

Stormblessed

@Jenayah Are you notified if your question appears in it?

Jenayah

I'd say roughly, what, 25% minimum is technical

@Stormblessed yes and no

No, because there no red dot in the inbox

Yes, because you go to do the groceries and when you come back you've got like a +70 rep notification and it keeps increasing

2

Alex

3:19 AM

@Jenayah I've never seen (or never noticed) four or five from the same technical site. But that is routinely the case for Science Fiction & Fantasy, Worldbuilding, The Workplace, Interpersonal Skills, etc.

Jenayah

34

Q: Which sites appear most often in the Hot Network Questions list?

Is there any data about which Stack Exchange sites have their questions end up in the Hot Network Questions list the most? In particular: What percentage of hot network questions comes from each site? What about all-time, this year, this month? What percentage of questions from each site end...

discussion hot-questions statistics data-analysis

Stormblessed

Any way to sneakily game the system and get there?

Like keywords the algorithm likes?

Jenayah

the algorithm, no idea, the users, nostalgia

Stormblessed

What are arbitrary "hotness points"?

Jenayah

hey, it's second meta I linked above ;p

@Jenayah for anyone wondering, yes, this is directed at a recent SFF hot question

Stormblessed

3:30 AM

@Jenayah <kbd>⌘</kbd>+<kbd>F</kbd> found nothing about hotness or points

Jenayah

90

Q: How do the "arbitrary hotness points" work on the new Stack Exchange home page and in the sidebar on questions?

I really like the new Stack Exchange home page, where certain questions from the Stack Exchange Network are presented, along with a hotness rating that is described as "arbitrary" in its tooltip. Such questions also appear randomly on the sidebar on questions across the network, under the heading...

support stackexchange.com hot-questions

they're based on the formula in the answer

Neo Darwin

Why would you even want to game the system?

Stormblessed

@NeoDarwin Get answers faster

Neo Darwin

It just dilutes the purpose of the site

Stormblessed

@NeoDarwin True

Jenayah

3:34 AM

@NeoDarwin people like rep points and badges

I like them too don't get me wrong

but I did got irked at stuff which i couldn't see being asked in complete good faith

Neo Darwin

It should just motivate you to give better answers

Rep will come as it comes

Jenayah

Not all HNQ answers are bad ones mind you

the "satisfaction" from HNQ also come from the fact that more people acknowledge your stuff

on SFF I mean... It can get really wrong on serious sites like Interpersonal or The Workplace but we're not them

I have a coupke of answers I'm really, really proud of, but they didn't get much attention as they came months/years later

Alex

@Stormblessed Upvote questions that you post answers to, post multiple answers to a question, upvote other answers to the question, visit the question from lots of different IP addresses, etc.

@Jenayah This is not a serious site?

Babel fish

0

Q: What was happening on Wakanda in the "end credit" scene of Avengers:Infinity War?

In the "End Credit" scene of Infinity War, we saw Maria Hill and Nick Fury driving in the street and then there was a message on the radio. Nick then asked Maria "what is it". Then Maria answers-"Multiple bogeys over Wakanda, more powerful then New York". After that, they turn into dust by the sn...

marvel-cinematic-universe avengers-infinity-war thor

Jenayah

less erious matters than IPS

Alex

3:42 AM

@Jenayah Is there some point that there are enough people late to the party that they create a new party?

Jenayah

works for me

let's get the party started

Alex

There's a query for most zero score answers, or something, but it never works when I try it.

Unsung hero stuff?

Yeah.

link?

3:48 AM

data.stackexchange.com/scifi/query/952673/the-true-unsung-heros

Jenayah

indeed

Alex

Side note, the human verification thing is confusing me.

Jenayah

so ducking tired of identifying store fronts

Alex

The middle one clearly has cars, but I did not check it.

Jenayah

@Alex yeah, I think you can select three or four and it'll pass

this thing is stupid anyway

Alex

3:51 AM

And the middle left one has one car, but the directions say images with cars.

Jenayah

I'm reasonably sure my roommate could program something based on image recognition to cheat it, based on what they teach him in his subject

Alex

And this query: data.stackexchange.com/scifi/query/944757/how-unsung-a-user-is gives completely wrong results:

Jenayah

they're not accepted though

Alex

That one doesn't specify acceptedness.

Jenayah

Unsung Hero does

Alex

3:54 AM

There are multiple versions.

Jenayah

none working?

Alex

Some produce nothing; others tell me I have 19 non-zero answers and no zero answers.

Jenayah

weird

Alex

My profile page tells me that I have 38 zero-score answers.

And 62 answers with a score of one.

Wow, more than half my answers are scored one or below.

Jenayah

Have other people reported this query as being faulty?

Alex

4:02 AM

Don't know.

Jenayah

Where'd you get it? It might just be the query being mistaken at some point

@Alex feel the LTTPS...

Alex

@Jenayah They're linked in several places, but I also found them just by searching the list.

Jenayah

Alright

Neo Darwin

@Jenayah current machine learning software can only reasonably beat characters recaptcha

Image recognition is not advanced enough yet to look for contextual clues as a human might

Alex

31 answers scored at two. So that's about two thirds of my answers at two or below.

Unrelated, @Jenayah is there a French word for lice (or some similar type of insect) other than poux that also starts with a "p"?

Stormblessed

4:58 AM

@Alex I logged in and Data doesn't bug me anymore

Alex

@Stormblessed You don't have to verify each time?

Stormblessed

@Stormblessed And it hecking logged me out

What is unsungness?

That generator says that Valorum is 99% unsung

Alex

@Stormblessed It's some measure of you providing content that you don't get acknowledged for.

Mithrandir

6:00 AM

@Alex Well, I've been awake half the night because of these annoying things called "colds".

SQB

6:27 AM

@Alex that does take accepted answers into account, excluding self-answers.

So perhaps it's that.

Jenayah

@Alex a "puce" maybe (flea)

SQB

Percentage is wrong, though.

Marvin

7:14 AM

1

Q: Looking for the comic story arc/issue where Deadpool is eaten by zombies and they [zombies] all turn into Deadpool clones

I vaguely recall the details of a Deadpool comic book issue I read around 4-5 years ago. Here are a few details I remember: Deadpool eats a load of chimichangas during a zombie apocalypse and completely sleeps through the zombie takeover. When he wakes up, he consumes some sort of serum...

story-identification marvel comics deadpool

Marvin

7:30 AM

0

Q: SCI FI book about society sprung from a prison ship coexisting with giant squid predators.

Please help me! I read this book two years ago at a local library and can't remember the name of it. It has a peach cover with multicolored text. It's about a man living in a society on an alien planet where a prison ship had crashed and the survivors banded together to form a society. He gets ...

story-identification hard-sci-fi

Marvin

8:17 AM

0

Q: What does Worf say in All Good Things in Klingonese

I was rewatching All Good Things from STTNG. In the scene when the Klingons attack the USS Pasteur, Captain (Beverly) Picard tells Worf to signal their surrender. Worf replies with tOS vAH'CHA DO WORF. DO'LO JEGH. Apparently the Klingon translators I found online doesn't seem to be able to ...

star-trek-tng worf

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The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…