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6:56 AM
The alpha version of the Request Generator (GitHub) (install) has been updated to version 1.8.4.0 with support for CRUDE and Mathematics. Reminder: the alpha version does not work with Greasemonkey 4 on Firefox (Tampermonkey and Violentmonkey are fine on all browsers).
@Lord_Farin Sorry for the delay in getting that version out, real life was significantly more hectic today than I expected.
If there are things that you did/didn't want changed which I left out/in, please tell me (and bugs/issues in general). I noticed you removed the inclusion of the question's primary tag in the request messages, and chose to not have a "send cv-pls" checkbox in the close-vote dialog. I left those in, but if they are things that your room doesn't want, I'll disable them for your room. I should have asked about them earlier, but forgot to do so.
 
7:20 AM
I selected Request Type:cv-pls and into the request reason field I wrote "duplicate"
@Makyen Shouldn't the message start with "cv-pls" tag? Or did I do something wrong?
 
@MartinSleziak It should. It did when I tested it, dang it. Give me a moment.
 
I did not vote on this one yet - so that it can be still used for testing. (I suppose whether or not I voted to close should not influence the outcome.)
 
Nope. That should have no effect.
 
But this is probably just a result how MathJax is handled - I've seen the same thing with other userscripts/bookmarlets.
Certainly it is still readable, just the MathJax item's are doubled trippled.
And I see that the second link I posted was wrong, I meant to use: Proving that $\sum_{i=1}^n\frac{1}{i^2}<2-\frac1n$ for $n>1$ by induction
 
I found the bug wrt. the missing tag. I'd like to fix the link formatting at the same time. Let me take a look at that now.
 
 
2 hours later…
9:12 AM
The alpha version of the Request Generator, v1.8.5.0, (GitHub) (install) is available with fixes for missing request tags and getting the non-MathJaxed version of the question title. Reminder: the alpha version doesn't work with Greasemonkey 4 on Firefox (Tampermonkey and Violentmonkey are fine on all browsers).
2
The current implementation of getting the original title text (i.e. prior to MathJax changing it) is a bit of a hack, so I'd appreciate being told if it doesn't get the original version.
 
OK. Getting the non-MathJaxed version didn't work there. Obviously, I need to still work on that.
 
I don't think it's that much of a problem. (It's definitely not something urgent.)
I have to say that I admire people capable of doing this - since I do not know javascript at all.
From what I gathered when you were talking with @Lord_Farin, when several requests like this are posted, it can be checked automatically whether they are already closed and move them to a different room.
That is done by a different userscript right?
BTW the title with MathJax is displayed find in the request preview.
 
@MartinSleziak Yes. There are two additional userscripts. There is the Archiver ("CV Request Archiver"), which semi-automatically archives "completed" requests. "Completed" is defined as the action requested has happened, or a time-limit has expired. The time-limit can be set to something else for this room, if you desire, but what SOCVR currently uses is 3 days for close/reopen and 7 days for delete/undelete.
The other script is the beta version of the Unclosed Request Review Script (URRS), which provides semi-realtime information in chat and a review page, based off of Chat search, of non-complete requests.
 
The "archive" room is in this case CRUDE Archive, right?
We will see how this works in practice - how many users start using the Request Generator.
 
9:25 AM
@MartinSleziak Yep. For me it shows the original version. However, the way that I implemented it inherently has potential timing issues, which will depend on the userscript manager you are using and browser, and maybe just on the phase of the moon. My intent is to implement a more robust solution for the MathJax issue, but all the others which I came up with would take more time programming, or more resources (i.e. more requests to SE), and all would require more testing. So, it's a later version.
 
In any case, if somebody already has TamperMonkey, it's probably quicker to do it this way than to compose message with posts to close/delete manually. So I'd say that this might make life easier for user who are active here a lot.
 
@MartinSleziak It's my understanding that is the room you desire to use. Which gets used for this room is something that can easily be changed in the code.
 
Yes, @Lord_Farin created that room exactly for this purpose.
Yes, I thought exactly about that. (Although IIRC it is some time to go before 7 days - which is the interval for freezing if the room has only one user.)
 
Yeah, I know it's a bit early to be worried about the room freezing, but I'd already clicked to join the room and it had been 3 days... Also, having an additional person makes the delay longer (14 days, IIRC), if there are enough messages.
 
9:46 AM
@MartinSleziak (cc @Lord_Farin) I'd suggest making anyone that's going to be running the Archiver (e.g. all ROs in this room) also ROs in CRUDE Archive and changing that room to gallery mode. It's not really a room where you want people talking, or at least that's how we do it for SOCVR.
If there is the ongoing possibility of not having messages moved into that room for a several days at a stretch, I'd suggest requesting that GenericBot periodically post anti-freeze messages. You can ask Floern in SOBotics to set it up, if you want.
We use that bot for our trash room (not the archive room) and test room, just to be on the safe side. Once the Archiver is available (probably tomorrow), I'd assume that you'll have a reasonable level of messages in that room and probably won't need to worry about it. But, if concerned, you can use GenericBot.
 
@Makyen: Actually, I thought a much better method would be to set up an independent website to automatically track posts.
There's no real reason we have to force ourselves to make do with what we can do in SE chat.
It's just that there is a cost to setting it up...
 
That's very true. It all depends on what you want to accomplish and what resources you have available to get it done.
 
10:05 AM
@Did @amWhy @XanderHenderson: Poor duplicate of PSQ.
 
So let's just test the userscript also on that one.
 
duplicate (No Roomba: accepted answer) Sum of a polynomial with all its derivative‭ - Peter Liu‭ 2016-04-28 14:41:49Z
 
@user21820 As far as SOCVR goes, one of the reasons to keep things primarily in chat is to have a high level of perceived transparency to the actions taken by the people participating. While it's been made clear that SE is OK with having what, when you get down to it, amounts to a voting ring operating to help moderate posts, it's also been made clear that there are significant boundaries and that we should remain accountable to Meta & SE for the actions we take.
Having things in chat has been helpful in that it makes it clear that the participants aren't fudging with the record of what happened, and allows anyone, particularly moderators and CMs, to review what's been happening, when needed. So, while some things could benefit from using an external server, e.g. just tracking posts (although that can also be done within chat), there's quite a bit that we wouldn't want to move off-site.
 
10:15 AM
@MartinSleziak Thanks. We all have different skills. There are things each of us can do that other people can't. All of those are valuable.
 
@Makyen I agree with that, but transparency will not be reduced if we have a direct link to that website from this chat-room. Anyway, I'm not criticizing your suggested method since I haven't provided a better alternative. =)
(as in, my suggestion is merely conceptual)
Though I do like the concise numbering/lettering we've been using here, since it's easy to shift-click (open in background tab) a bunch of them and then deal with them at one go.
Bad question was on the HNQ.
@Makyen: The other thing is that in here we can give custom explanation for mentioning any post. Unfortunately, of course, tracking becomes hard.
 
@user21820 Actually you can do that using userscript, too. It has an editable field called "reason" which is displayed here. (In the above report I filled "Duplicate" in that field.)
 
@user21820 The Request Generator lets you have a custom message. It does fill in a default message based on the status of the post and how you voted to close, but you can always add to that or change it.
 
Just to include an example.
The format of the message is: tags, reason (which can be edited manually), title, user, datetime.
 
@Makyen But I only have GreaseMonkey, so I can't use it.
 
10:31 AM
@user21820 Yeah, that is a problem. Greasemonkey 4 will be supported at some point, but it's probably going to be a while. To be frank, I recommend against using Greasemonkey 4, for multiple reasons. Primarily that you will have ongoing compatibility issues with various scripts, which will never be resolved (i.e. the only resolution is for userscript authors to specifically make them compatible, or not use the affected features).
As for the Request Generator, you can use the released version. However, you will need to manually set (once) CRUDE as the target on Mathematics. However, the released version only does cv-pls and reopen-pls. @Lord_Farin made a fork of the released version that does delete instead of reopen (questions only).
2
 
Duplicate (the difference that the inequality here is strict is very minor and does not change the proof). Proving $(n+1)^n > 2^n n!$‭ - Frank‭ 2012-08-13 04:53:08Z
Ok, at least we have a few requests so that it is possible to test later whether the the Archiver works as expected.
 
@Makyen Thanks for all your work!! It's amazing.
Missing context or other details (No Roomba: accepted answer) $f:S\to T$ is not a surjection if and only if …‭ - Viktor‭ 2019-01-16 21:10:53Z
Missing context or other details (No Roomba) Boolean expression need help‭ - user635326‭ 2019-01-16 13:14:47Z
Missing context or other details (No Roomba: accepted answer) Prove that this function is twice differentiable.‭ - Kcherno‭ 2019-01-16 12:58:49Z
Missing context or other details Civil engineering question‭ - Twinkle Kumar‭ 2019-01-16 05:40:06Z
@Makyen An issue I personally have with the current layout of the requests is that the link to the question/answer is positioned on an erratic place in the message, which makes it hard to click on it easily by muscle memory. I'm not sure what is the best solution for this, but it stands out to me.
 
10:50 AM
@Lord_Farin np. I'm glad to be able to help.
@Lord_Farin We can rearrange things for this room if you'd like. However, the URRS may solve that problem for you, as it puts an additional link to the post (with brief status) between the chat messages and the sidebar. In SOCVR, it looks like this.
 
@Makyen Ah, with URRS it will be fine. Thanks.
 
 
1 hour later…
12:19 PM
I suppose that there is no actual difference between messages posted in the room manually and the messages posting the userscript. So if somebody posts a message starting by "del-pls" or "cv-pls" tag, Archiver (and other relevant scripts) would be able to work with that message as well. Is that correct @Makyen?
I am just mentioning this because users with GreaseMonkey cannot use the userscript. And also messages posted by userscript are visually distinguished by the tags - which is disadvantage for those who post messages manually. Using tags would possibly increase visibility. (For the visibility issue users could use both the tags which are used by the script, or some other tags if the user prefer the message not to be archived after completion.)
 
 
2 hours later…
1:59 PM
Missing context or other details (No Roomba) What is the area of the triangle given its sides?‭ - Obsculyze‭ 2019-01-15 09:30:38Z
Missing context or other details (No Roomba: accepted answer) Centripetal forces question.. help me please..‭ - user634867‭ 2019-01-15 03:05:10Z
Missing context or other details (No Roomba: accepted answer) Explain this fraction equivalence‭ - Ian Warburton‭ 2019-01-14 17:56:56Z
unclear (No Roomba: accepted answer) Is $x^2 + x + 1 = 0$ a statement?‭ - Mohamed Magdy‭ 2019-01-14 17:54:02Z
unclear (No Roomba: accepted answer) Topic on function‭ - user628653‭ 2019-01-14 15:26:36Z
Missing context or other details Fourier series of $f(x)=\frac{1}{2-e^{ix}}$‭ - user626880‭ 2019-01-12 09:55:08Z
 
2:28 PM
Undeleted PSQs: 1, 2.
 
To be faire, the latter was deleted by the OP.
 
2:43 PM
@MartinSleziak I am aware of that. Anyway I don't understand the point of undeleting bad questions with answers to "unhide" cheating since the teacher is not going to be around to notice. It's far better to leave it deleted so that rep-farmers are disincentivized from answering PSQs.
@Lord_Farin: Does this meet your criterion of "no lasting value"?
 
I think it is generally agreed that deleting question after somebody received an answer is a bad thing. Certainly, I have no problem if the question gets closed and deleted by the community. (Of course, you can ask directly the moderator who undeleted the post whether this was the rationale.)
 
@MartinSleziak I understand that rationale. But it is a bit odd to give "cheating evasion" as the reason, as it appears contrary to community deletion as well.
 
@user21820 As a matter of fact I like it better than its dupe target. I'd like to see the duplication reversed. This question is so common that we need it covered one way or another.
Or maybe one can argue that it's better to have a very "clean" variant for this. Maybe it's possible to find a different one.
 
@Lord_Farin You're right. I didn't notice the duplicate target is 100 times worse.
 
@user21820 The difference between the two is timing, IMO. Don't forget that we typically leave questions for at least the on-hold period.
 
2:55 PM
Two more post about the same inequality: 1198666: Proving $n! < n^n$ by induction for all $n\geq 2$., 1260233: Inductive Proof that $k!<k^k$, for $k\geq 2$. (However, they seem closer to proof verification questions.)
 
3:52 PM
@user21820 To chime in briefly on the question (as the mod who undeleted it) --- I wouldn't have undone the deletion were it not done immediately by the OP. I find that overly unfair to those who took the time to answer the question. I think of this as being very different in comparison to the situation where a group of community members decides that the question isn't worth repairing/keeping and ultimately close/delete the question.
 
@davidlowryduda Yes I understand the undeletion. I only find the comment odd, as I doubt most users (askers and answerers alike) would understand why subsequent deletion by the community is any different.
 
@user21820 That's interesting. It seems clear to me that the comment is directed at the OP immediately deleting the post after receiving an answer. How might you write the comment to make it clear?
 
@davidlowryduda I would say "It is against site rules to delete your question immediately after receiving an answer." and leave it at that. This avoids associating it with unkindness to the answerer and/or cheating attempts.
It's unfortunate that the site guidelines are not very consistent in this respect; we cannot simultaneously penalize bad questions without also penalizing their answerers. So it's inconsistent to link self-deletion to unkindness to answerers, if we still want to eventually delete PSQs.
 
4:27 PM
@user21820 Thanks for the rewording. I've removed mention of cheating from the comment, and replaced that clause with a generic against site rules statement.
 
@davidlowryduda Oh okay thanks for that!
 
@MartinSleziak Yes, that's correct. The other scripts do not rely on the exact format of the request message, beyond having a request tag somewhere in the message. If the message does not have an actual request-tag, but does have "cv-pls", or other text recognized as a request, then it may still be recognized as a request. But, recognizing requests that don't have a request-tag is not 100% accurate.
However, currently, detection of messages as requests when they don't have a request-tag at all is not the case for the URRS review pages. Requests without a request-tag are not presented by the URRS in the separate review page, because that review is based on SE's chat search, which is not nearly as flexible wrt. format as being able to use multiple regexes.
The scripts ignore text that looks like it might be a request tag that's not in actual when the text is in code format.
 
@Makyen A question along the same line - if I wrote into the reason field "duplicate of How can I show that $n! \leqslant (\frac{n+1}{2})^n$?" that would probably be a problem for the Archiver script. (Since then there would be links to two questions - one that I added manually and the other one generated by the user script.)
Is this correct? Should I avoid including link to the duplicate in the reason field?
 
4:47 PM
How aggressively to detect such non-tagged requests, or requests with alternate formats (including having multiple questions linked) is a bit of a balancing act for the Archiver. However, the Archiver shows a popup for the user to review the messages that are automatically detected as "complete" prior to moving them. In the popup the user can remove posts from the selection.
The user also has the option of marking messages in chat, from the transcript, from searches and from user pages as ones that they have manually added to a "manual move list". They can then choose to move the messages on that "manual move list". The list is retained, so the user can select messages from multiple pages to move all at once.
 
Thanks for the explanations!
 
@Did @amWhy @MikeMiller: Totally wrong answer.
 
@MartinSleziak It's not uncommon for users to do so. However, it's difficult for the scripts to distinguish between a request that is asking people to close a single question with a link to a desired dup-target vs. a request for closing multiple questions. How the scripts handle that case is not completely uniform. The Archiver assumes the first closed question completes the request. This mostly becomes an issue when a user includes an already closed question as the desired dup-target.
How the scripts actually handle this may need improvement to work well with your room's common use of having multiple posts included in a single message, all of which have desired action.
As to including a dup-target in a request, that's usually handled reasonably, except the above mentioned case where the dup-target is already closed. However, I usually recommend that people not be in the habit of providing the dup-target in the request message, mostly because I feel that the appropriate place for that information is in a "Possible duplicate of" comment on the question.
Having it in a comment is where the SE system already puts that information when someone votes/flags to close. Thus, people are already trained to look for it there, in a "Possible duplicate of" comment. Having it in a comment and not only in a request message makes the information available to anyone who happens by the question, rather than only to those who read this chat room.
 
@Makyen I am pretty sure that users round here who want to use those scripts can accommodate the format of messages to them. (Especially since this is made quite easy for those using the Request Generator.)
I'll keep this in mind when reporting duplicates.
 
5:02 PM
Delete? 3, 4, 5.
6, 7, 8.
9, 10.
Close? A, B.
 
 
4 hours later…

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