The Reading Room

Rand al'Thor

05:07

@GarethRees Having now read it all, yes indeed, excellent answer. Thanks @Tsundoku, as usual.

Let's hope the new topic challenge proposals thread gets more voting now that weekdays are beginning, and especially with another election notification due to drag everyone back to the site today.

So far it seems to be just me and Tsundoku voting on each other's proposals ;-)

About porting across old answers ... Tsundoku and I are already doing so, I've pinged (pung?) Galli, Mith, heather, and informed EJoshuaS via comment ... just need to do the same for Mick, Standback, Peter Shor, Marine1.

And done. (I'm not personally a fan of Mick's or Marine1's suggestions, but Peter Shor's looks great and is definitely worth copying to the new thread. Anyway I informed all of them.)

heather

05:48

i am in favor of pung being the past tense of ping

2

Rand al'Thor

Past participle. The past tense should be pang.

sing/sang/sung, swing/swang/swung, ping/pang/pung

New Topic Challenge Suggestion

06:04

0

A: New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

Topic challenge: Nazi Holocaust literature This includes both fiction and nonfiction books - examples include Night by Elie Weisel Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank Maus by Art Spiegelman (based on interviews with author's father, graphic novel) Children's poems from Terezin Concentration Ca...

Bob Tway

07:58

I know we have to give some leeway for poetic licence, but I'm really confused by how YB Yeats thought he could plant nine bean rows and get peas

b_jonas

literature.stackexchange.com/election 4 users nominated so far

b_jonas

08:21

Is there a meta thread where we ask questions to the moderator candidates, or do we just ask in chat?

Gareth Rees

@b_jonas There's a meta thread here

Mithical

09:57

@Tsundoku you comfortable with @StackLiterature tagging you on Twitter?

Gallifreyan

10:44

Last 9 hours to nominate yourself to be a pro-tempore moderator here on Lit!

2

I've closed and locked the old topic challenge post. I wish we could edit the lock reason text, though

Gallifreyan

11:03

I wish the meta mod flags would be displayed on the main site as well

Though that may create problems of its own on more active sites, for me it'd be a huge relief :D

@Mithical is there any userscript for that, per chance?

Mithical

Just glanced through my list of mod scripts and didn't find anything,

Gallifreyan

:(

Mithical

try looking through stackoverflow.com/c/moderators/q/37/3, though, that should be more up-to-date than my list

Gallifreyan

Thanks! Didn't find what I wanted, but installed some other handy scripts

It seems I'll simply have to stop being lazy

Mithical

I mean, Art or Sam could probably whip something up for you if you ask.

Gallifreyan

11:16

Too much bother for not enough payoff, I think

Gallifreyan

11:54

Welp, I still did it

Rand al'Thor

@b_jonas I was thinking of creating a CW meta post where anyone could edit in questions and the candidates could answer them. But then when I became one of the candidates, I thought it might be an odd look for me to start such an endeavour and propose questions.

Our meta isn't that active ...

Mith did propose one question, but that's more to "new members of the SE network moderator community" than anything to do with moderating Lit itself (AIUI, none of the issues leading to the two resignations occurred here on this site, but more in main meta and network mod-only spaces). Since 3 of the 4 candidates are already part of the network mod community, it's almost a moot point.

Tsundoku

13:25

@Mithical I don't know. What do you mean by "tagging" me?

Mithical

@Tsundoku @-ing you. ;)

As in, "Check out this cool answer by @<your Twitter handle> about The Epic of Gilgamesh: <link>"

Tsundoku

Aah, that's what you mean. Yeah, that sounds OK. Tagging has so many lugubrious meanings ;-)

Mithical

Cool, just wanted to check beforehand

Just to verify; you are @RabelaisA11y and I'm not making a fool of myself?

Tsundoku

13:40

Yes, that's me. I blew my pseudonym, I guess.

Mithical

I mean... most people aren't checking who retweeted posts from @StackLiterature.

Feeds

14:05

twitter.com/pingu_comrade/status/1248924867602321408

twitter.com/RabelaisA11y/status/1249051447972552708

twitter.com/StackLiterature/status/1252230921937285124

Tsundoku

Oh, is that a new feed?

Mithical

No. Just the Twitter account has been very quiet lately since I didn't feel like doing anything with it and the chat control room kinda died.

Apr 23 '17 at 10:31, by Feeds

Mithrandir has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

Almost exactly three years.

Feeds

14:23

Tsundoku has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

Tsundoku

The webpage HNQ rss feed filter, which should provide the HNQ feed, is based on loutish-rod.glitch.me, which is still working. But none of my attempts to "fix" the HNQ feed for our site have worked.

New Topic Challenge Suggestion

1

A: New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

Rabindranath Tagore I would like to suggest Rabindranath Tagore (1861—1941), an important Bengali writer who wrote poems, short stories, and novels. This is in part a response to the suggestion of Munshi Premchand (1880—1936), a Hindi writer whose works seem quite difficult to get in English. I...

Rand al'Thor

15:18

@Gallifreyan Does it need to be locked? I assume your aim is to prevent further voting on the answers, but it's a bit unfortunate to be unable to comment on them (luckily I got all my "FYI if you want to port your answer over" comments in already) or edit them (clicking "edit" just to get the text with all formatting stuff is nice for copying them over).

I'm now really regretting that I didn't notice the Narayan topic challenge earlier. (Really feels like I didn't even notice it, or at least didn't pay any attention. I guess these months have given us all a lot of other things to worry about.)

Malgudi Days, a collection of short stories by R. K. Narayan. Short stories, so it's easy to dip in and have just a ten-minute read.

2

Tsundoku

I actually bought one of Narayan's novels (The Painter of Signs) but I haven't started reading it yet because I've been busy reading Lin Yutang and something about a certain Gilgamesh.

I read Malgudi Days last year but no questions came up.

Rand al'Thor

> Here is one way I propose that you read this book: one story per day, for thirty-two consecutive days, by the end of which you will have experienced Malgudi Days as a Malgudi month, more or less. Each day’s reading, with only a few exceptions, will take about ten minutes. The vast majority of these stories are less than ten pages long, several are under five, and only one is more than twenty.

^ from the foreword by Jhumpa Lahiri

Tsundoku

Yes, I remember that now.

Rand al'Thor

That seems perfect for a monthly topic challenge.

But now only ten days left :-(

I'd better get reading and asking then.

Gallifreyan

15:43

@Randal'Thor My aim was what you said, though I didn't think about the comments and the edits. I'll unlock it for now then

North

16:37

@Randal'Thor @Tsundoku Thank you! The answer is now online.

Rand al'Thor

@North Wow, nice collection of links! That's the most thorough/detailed answer so far.

North

@Randal'Thor Thank you! It did take a while to put it together, but I do like to be thorough.

Bookworm

0

Q: Is there any general significance to 20 May in Hinduism, or was it just personally auspicious?

In R. K. Narayan's short story "The Missing Mail", from the 1943 collection Malgudi Days, which I've been reading online, the resident Ramanujam is desperately trying to arrange a marriage for his daughter Kamakshi. At one point he says to Thanappa: The season would be closing, with only thre...

North

Unfortunately, Korean folktale doesn't exactly have one "definite" author that you can turn to (unlike Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault), so I had to do some digging to find decent links to the folk tales that were actually telling the story rather than the summary. I think that was the most difficult part

It's mostly (and still nowadays) told orally, though there are plenty of children's books that have a collection of the folktales

New Topic Challenge Suggestion

1

A: New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

The Tale of Genji The Tale of Genji, written in the early 11th century by the noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu, is almost consistently described as the oldest novel in Japanese literature. Depending on how you define "novel" it may be the world's first novel. There are English tr...

0

A: New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

The works of Arthur Koestler (1905 – 1983) Arthur Koestler was a Hungarian-British author and journalist. He was born in Budapest and grew up mainly in Austria. He became a member of the Communist Party of Germany in 1931, from which he resigned in 1938 because he had become disillusioned by Sta...

1

A: New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

Genre Challenge: Korean Folklore So, after Tsundoku pointed out there so far was no questions on Korean literature in Lit. SE and encouragement from Rand'al Thor I'm proposing Korean Folklore as the next Reading Challenge! This would be a great genre challenge. Folklore and fairy tales aren'...

Rand al'Thor

16:48

@North It'll be good anyway to get more questions on oral literature. We had a kinda strange discussion about that years ago; it's definitely been treated as on-topic since then, but hasn't seen all that many questions.

North

It is a bit harder I think

Oral literature isn't a very familiar concept to Westen culture since there's such a heavy emphasis on writing stuff down. The thing with oral literature too is that it's always told just slightly different from person to person

I'm not sure what one could ask, with the addition to recalling the story but also expecting someone else to know

Rand al'Thor

Well, questions don't have to rely on the exact details of a story. Could also be questions about general cultural context which enhances understanding of the story as a whole.

North

True

Rand al'Thor

Western culture also had oral literature if you go back far enough. (Well, I guess that's true of any culture.) Not all that far in some places, too, like Ireland IIRC.

North

Ooh goblins and fairies and leprachauns and evil demons

Sounds about right

I mean most folk tales are told orally, since like the general population back then was illiterate

Rand al'Thor

16:59

The whole "blarney" thing is often reduced to just a stereotype about Irish people being gossips and swindlers, but that "gift of the gab" also relates to a real skill and tradition in storytelling.

@North Yeah exactly, if you go back far enough it's oral all the way down.

Hence why people used to be able to make an occupation out of being a bard or minstrel or whatever.

North

Exactly

Tsundoku

@Bookworm Looks a bit tricky with Hindu festivals following a lunar calendar.

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku Which calendar? The link in Journeyman's answer says the Tamil calendar is a solar calendar.

North

17:15

Okay, I changed my profile picture, but it won't show up in the chatroom which makes me sad

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor Perhaps I should have said Hindu calendar. When you look at this list of Hindu festivals, very few appear to be based on the Tamil calendar. But yes, the Hindu calendar is solar not lunar.

North

Because my parent user is still technically PSE

There, I'm a book about a tree

Rand al'Thor

@North It does.

Did you change your parent user?

North

@Randal'Thor Just briefly to show you what it looks like

Tsundoku

@North Do people in the PSE chatroom make jokes about "The North remembers"? ;-)

North

17:19

@Tsundoku What

Not once

Rand al'Thor

@North Yggdrasil?

North

@Tsundoku Though now you mention it, I'm surprised they haven't. Maybe I'm too dense.

Tsundoku

Or maybe they just aren't Game of Thrones fans.

Mithical

<--- knows nothing about GoT and only a bit about ASoIaF

North

@Randal'Thor I should just change my name to that in LSE huh

Rand al'Thor

17:23

> Scholars generally consider Hoddmímis holt, Mímameiðr, and Læraðr to be other names for the tree.

Læraðr - there's a name for you.

Tsundoku

@Mithical I told myself I wouldn't start reading ASoIaF before G. R. R. Martin had finished the last volume in the series. We're still waiting for the penultimate one. But I watched all of GoT.

@Randal'Thor How are we supposed to type "Læraðr"?

North

@Randal'Thor You know what, a friend of mine would be proud of that name

@Tsundoku More the reason

I'm now very tempted

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku Type @L and hope autocomplete works.

That's what I did with Ik Weet thingy ;-)

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor That's what I still do with your name.

North

@Tsundoku I just type the full thing because I never considered that

Tsundoku

17:27

@North You could pick Humbaba, a mythical character that protected an entire forest.

@North So you simply remember where the space and the ' go?

North

@Tsundoku Well if I'm mentioning him, I let autocorrect do it's job (I see what you mean) but otherwise I need to double check Rand al'Thor

I always think it's Rand'al Thor

@Tsundoku I like Læraðr better. It makes me sound incredibly, obnoxiously pretentious or just weird.

Tsundoku

At least nobody's been tempted to abbreviate it to RaT.

North

I'm sure this user named humn has done that at least once.

Tsundoku

@North And then you'll wait until Heiðrún joins this room.

North

Haha

Rand al'Thor

17:32

@North He's called me Rand al'pretty much anything.

North

The only problem is that once I change my name, I can't make North jokes anymore

@Randal'Thor True

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku It's easy for anyone with a passing familiarity with the Wheel of Time fantasy series.

North

Maybe I should do Læraðr (North)

Tsundoku

<--- knows nothing about the Wheel of Time fantasy series.

North

And make people think that gibberish means north

North of Læraðr

Keep straight until you meet a giant squirrel who will eat you, then turn left

Rand al'Thor

17:36

@North Then it sounds like a place.

Læraðr North, Læraðr South, Læraðr in the Marsh.

North

Personally, I like the view from Læraðr North-West

well it's Læraðr in LSE

I mean I would love to confuse some of the users in PSE

Imagine Gareth's response

Rand al'Thor

@North McCaughan or Rees?

North

McCaughan

I forgot there's two Gareths now

Rand al'Thor

Apparently SE is full of knowledgeable and well-read Gareths.

North

They're taking over the network! Wait, I'm not sure that's a bad thing

North Læraðr

That's what I'm going with

Rand al'Thor

17:43

Oh, you changed on PSE too?

Want me to refresh your chat profile?

North

Sure

Rand al'Thor

Otherwise it might take half an hour to propagate here.

Done.

North Læraðr

Thank you

Aw, c'mon, they won't let me change my display name to North Læraðr in LSE

Rand al'Thor

You can only change once a month.

North Læraðr

Dang it, I wish I'd known, otherwise I'd been more careful

Rand al'Thor

17:47

But I think you can get around that by changing it on another site and making sure to propagate the change to all sites.

in The Sphinx's Lair, Oct 16 '16 at 20:05, by Rand al'Thor

in Mos Eisley, Aug 15 '15 at 12:55, by starrer

tip of the day: do not change your username for the sake of humor

North Læraðr

ah well uh I wish I'd known but oh well

@Randal'Thor Yeah, your name doesn't change

Hold on maybe if I

eyyy it worked

~~That's a really big loophole, I wonder why they didn't fix that~~ Oh well

Tsundoku

18:08

This whisky ad is epic.

2

Rand al'Thor

19:59

> election begins
> in 53 seconds

Zenix

Voted!!

Gareth Rees

20:29

List of users voting in the election

3

Tsundoku

That looks like a good start.

North Læraðr

Oh cool I forgot I get a badge for that

Rand al'Thor

20:44

Fun fact: that badge is actually one of those counted by the candidate score.

North Læraðr

Oh really?

Rand al'Thor

So each of us increases our candidate score simply by voting.

North Læraðr

Can you vote for yourself?

Rand al'Thor

(In this case. For future elections it might not be the case because a candidate might have voted before in a previous election.)

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor What's the moderation badge you're missing?

Rand al'Thor

20:45

@NorthLæraðr Yes.

Although you don't have to. Candidates can choose anyone to vote for just like everyone else.

North Læraðr

Dang, imagine getting a badge for voting for yourself

Mithical

...pretty sure I did that once...

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Sportsmanship (for upvoting lots of competing answers). I'm surprised that that counts as a moderation badge, although it is a reasonable one for mod score since it shows a sort of lack of selfishness.

Nobody has it on this site. It's difficult to get here because our answers-per-question ratio is quite low.

North Læraðr

Ah, that would make sense

@Mithical Really...?

Tsundoku

In normal elections, candidates also have the right to vote. So SE's system is consistent with political elections from that point of view.

North Læraðr

20:49

I did not know candidates had a right to vote

Knight

@Randal'Thor Are you there?

Tsundoku

"Art thou there, truepenny?"

Mithical

@NorthLæraðr Over four years ago.

North Læraðr

That's still pretty funny

Knight

@Tsundoku truepenny ? :-)

Tsundoku

20:52

@Knight Hamlet, Act I, scene 5, I believe.

Knight

Oh okay

Tsundoku

I answer lots of Shakespeare questions on this site.

Knight

It feels very nice how the upcoming mods are so friendly and nice unlike their counterparts on PSE

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr At least in Britain, it usually makes minor news: election news coverage will include photos of the prime minister and party leaders casting their votes (for themselves, one presumes).

@Knight Here I be.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Imagine if they didn't

@Knight Pardon?

Rand al'Thor

20:55

@Knight Which P? I've always found the current Puzzling mods to be friendly and nice.

Mithical

@Knight *squints*

Tsundoku

@Knight But why wouldn't they be? It's part of their election campaign ;-)

Knight

Physics.SE

North Læraðr

Oh

Knight

I don’t think PSE mods were ever nice even at times of elections LOL

But I really feel bad about Dmckee, he was nice but he left us :(

Tsundoku

20:57

Our general criteria for moderators is as follows: "patient and fair", (...), "shows respect for their fellow community members in their actions and words", (...).

Knight

Yes, that should be the case.

People on Physics.SE reply like this “if you don’t understand the notations then it’s your responsibility, the answer is right in its core”

Rand al'Thor

I've no wish to get involved in Physics.SE drama. Or for that matter real-life physics research drama.

Tsundoku

No, we prefer literary drama.

Knight

Hahahahaha

Tsundoku

But perhaps people who prefer literature over a discipline like physics, which relies on hard evidence and proof and all that, are of a different temperament?

Knight

21:03

@Randal'Thor Thank God you know that there actually happened some drama!

@Tsundoku Yes, I agree but they would have stopped this conversation much before but see you and we have talked nicely and peacefully

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku Physics doesn't entirely rely on proof. A lot of theoretical physics research seems to consist of different factions calling each other's theories crackpottery. Some people swear by string theory, others say it's "not even wrong".

Maths is the one that really relies on absolute proof, but unfortunately even there there can be drama (e.g. over definitions, which aren't on a true/false dichotomy like theorems and proofs).

Tsundoku

Ah, yes, string theory. Well, we have fantasy.

Knight

I think there’s nothing like prodigy in literature field.

Because as John Milton said (no verbatim is claimed) that it requires maturity to write something

Tsundoku

@Knight There have been prodigies (well, sort of) both in literature and in literary criticism.

Knight

Like who?

I really don’t know

Mithical

21:09

@Knight *raises eyebrow* I beg to differ with that statement.

Rand al'Thor

Maturity as in physical maturity, or intellectual maturity?

Tsundoku

The French poet Rimbaud stopped writing at a very young age. He is still considered a major poet.

Knight

@Randal'Thor Intellectual

@Mithical Didn’t get you

@Tsundoku Stopped? Why?

Mithical

Plenty of people getting published without intellectual maturity. ;)

Knight

@Mithical Yeha that’s true :-)

Tsundoku

21:12

William Empson published his most famous work, Seven Types of Ambiguity at the age of 24. He got kicked out of Cambridge University (and consequently out of British academia, basically) when condoms were found in his student room.

Rand al'Thor

!

Knight

@Tsundoku Why he was kicked out for that ?

Tsundoku

@Knight I don't know exactly, I haven't read a Rimbaud biography yet.

Knight

Why keeping a contraceptive caused him so much trouble ?

Tsundoku

@Knight It supposedly "proved" that he was having extramarital relations, which was, in those days, bad enough to get you kicked out.

Knight

21:14

Okay

Rand al'Thor

@Knight I imagine that was in the days when Oxford and Cambridge didn't accept female students or even allow women into their college grounds.

Knight

Wow!

Rand al'Thor

The days when any woman seen speaking to a student was assumed to be most likely a prostitute.

Knight

You know in some chat rooms they even hate to be pinged

Rand al'Thor

Yeaaaah, Oxbridge has a long history of extreme sexism.

It took until the 1970s before most colleges began to accept female students.

Knight

21:16

@Randal'Thor my questions were on eroticism:)

Tsundoku

The Flemish poet Jotie T'Hooft died at the age of 21, but I admit he doesn't come near the status that Rimbaud has in French poetry.

Rand al'Thor

@Knight In this case they're somewhat connected.

@Tsundoku t'Hooft? Are we back to physicists now? :-)

Knight

@Randal'Thor Yeah

@Randal'Thor Hahahahaha

hahahahaha

Users of Physics.SE trolled Mr.Hooft and he left t

Tsundoku

That name clash in an anomaly, I suppose?

Rand al'Thor

@Knight That could be a question for the site, potentially.

North Læraðr

21:20

Always trying to promote activity, Rand al'Thor?

Knight

Okay, first I will read about him and then I will ask

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr You got it ;-)

Knight

It seems very nice to me that high reputation users promote activity on this site, otherwise on other SE sites they are sort of ultra deletionist

North Læraðr

It depends on the site, honestly

PSE is both ultra-engaging and ultra-deltionist

Rand al'Thor

Also, "Rand" is fine (if you're not Aiel). Especially given the earlier discussion about having trouble remembering which way round the space and apostrophe go.

Tsundoku

21:22

I think it's nice that the election has drawn some users to this chatroom that I have never seen before :-)

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor I usually do call you just Rand, but sometimes I like to spice things up

Knight

Which country are you from Rand?

North Læraðr

Britain

Rand al'Thor

^

@NorthLæraðr Which P? Knight is using PSE to mean Physics.

Knight

But your name doesn’t seem to be English

That “al”

North Læraðr

21:23

@Randal'Thor Right. Puzzling SE

Knight

is generally found in Italian

North Læraðr

@Knight It's from some sort of game or book or something

It's not his actual name lol

Knight

Okay, pseudoname

Can you people see how much vote you all have got till now?

Mithical

It's from The Wheel of Time.

@Knight No.

Gareth Rees

Remember the fundamental attribution error — it seems likely that it is the environment of literature.se, not the character of the users, that is responsible for the appearance of niceness

Knight

21:25

Okay

North Læraðr

wot.fandom.com/wiki/Rand_al%27Thor

Tsundoku

@Knight Knight sounds like a real family name :-)

Knight

Hahahahaha

Rand al'Thor

@Knight It's from ancient Manetheren, nowadays the Two Rivers.

Knight

What does this mean

1 min ago, by Gareth Rees

Remember the fundamental attribution error — it seems likely that it is the environment of literature.se, not the character of the users, that is responsible for the appearance of niceness

Rand al'Thor

21:27

Which part don't you understand?

Gareth Rees

See Wikipedia on the fundamental attribution error — it's the tendency of people to interpret behaviour as deriving from character rather than environment

Knight

@Randal'Thor Was it directed to me?

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor That would probably be low-hanging fruit, even though the English Wikipedia article does not explain why.

Knight

Oh wow! He meant that people may not be the way they behave

Rand al'Thor

@Knight Well, you were the one commenting on people here being friendly and nice more than on other sites.

Gareth Rees

21:30

If literature.se were deluged with low-quality posts then we might find ourselves just as nasty as on other sites

Knight

Yes, I was @Randal'Thor

Rand al'Thor

@Knight Not sure if that's a good way to summarise it.

Knight

@GarethRees Being disrespectful is a different thing

And I don’t know why you want to be “nasty”

Mithical

.....huh?

Knight

@Randal'Thor That line is written in the linked wiki article

Gareth Rees

21:32

I'm not saying I want to be nasty, I'm saying that the pressure of a poor environment might produce nasty behaviour in people who would behave nicely in a better environment

Tsundoku

I don't think anybody wants us to be nasty, but handling lots of low-quality posts can tax your patience.

2

Knight

@GarethRees Yes that could be the case

Rand al'Thor

@GarethRees There were a lot more low-quality posts in the early days of the site, lots of them even getting upvoted quite a bit, because we hadn't yet established a drive for quality and diversity over quantity.

And in fact one or two of the users spearheading that drive did become perhaps "nasty" at times.

Quality did increase a lot, but there were some arguments along the way.

Tsundoku

Or to put my previous statement more positively, it can be a way to exercise the muscle of patience.

Rand al'Thor

Thankfully now we seem to have settled into a good groove :-)

Tsundoku

21:36

Was that when I was still editing tag wiki excerpts or even before that?

Mithical

Looong before that. ;)

Rand al'Thor

I don't remember how everything fit into the timeline.

Gareth Rees

This meta post would seem to be a product of those times: "I can't honestly recall the last positive interaction I've had on the site. Nearly everything I've done here has been frustrating, anxiety-inducing, and unrewarding, especially recently. The site feels impossible to appease."

North Læraðr

Geez. When I dropped by PhySE a couple years back there was a whole drama on like moderator election because someone got banned so was taken out of the running for the election?

Mithical

You can't run for election if you've been suspended in the past year, yes. *cough*

Tsundoku

21:40

@GarethRees That looks like it was posted around the time I joined the site, perhaps a matter of days before or after.

North Læraðr

I don't know though, the community in PhySE doesn't seem that bad, at least when I was there a handful of times

Mithical

@GarethRees That was the culmination, yeah. It started back in private beta.

....and I have my own theories as to why and how it wound up in that state, but they involve several users who have since left Lit so I won't be going into detail.

North Læraðr

Eh, every beta has their labor pains right?

Gareth Rees

I think that some users had a vision of the site being populated by literature professors, not realizing that on Stack Exchange it would be have to be a bunch of computer programmers who had read a couple of poems

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical Yeah, same. Specific users were prominent in all those events and I wouldn't feel good about naming them behind their backs.

North Læraðr

21:43

@GarethRees That sounds hilarious

It's Sid!

Mithical

Early Lit was an... interesting place.

Rand al'Thor

I will say that there was a push for better quality which I feel did improve the site a lot even though that pushing wasn't always as "nice" as I'd have liked.

Probably during 2017: it wasn't a single period but a more protracted process.

Mithical

Mhhm.

Sid

Do all members get to vote in the election? I have.. hehe.. forgotten how SE elections work

Rand al'Thor

@Sid Everyone with 150+ rep, I think.

North Læraðr

21:44

If you're over 150 rep I believe

Jinx

Rand al'Thor

jinx

North Læraðr

AHaha

Rand al'Thor

Double jinx!

North Læraðr

Dang it

I'd give you a Coke, but Rubio might get jealous

Sid

Ah. I somehow have 150+ rep in Literature.

Mithical

21:45

If it's not Diet Lime you should be fine.

Sid

Anyway. Thanks for the info

Rand al'Thor

@GarethRees I wrote an essay on meta at some point about how non-expert people (e.g. not qualified professionals) can still be trained to provide expert content.

@Sid If you got a notification about voting in the election, then you can vote ;-)

North Læraðr

I mean, I don't have to have a degree in literature to sound like I know what I'm doing

Mithical

On the other hand, you don't need to know what you're doing to get a degree in literature....

According to my mother, at least, who faked her way through minoring in Literature at college.

Sid

@Randal'Thor that's kinda why I am in here. This is like the first time I am visiting Literature SE in well over a year

Rand al'Thor

21:48

@NorthLæraðr Pro tip: if you link to the XKCD itself instead of uploading the image, it will onebox with hover text too.

@Sid Welcome back!

Sid

Actually, this is 2020. It's been like more than 2 years probably

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Huh. Didn't know that

Rand al'Thor

SE likes XKCD, apparently.

North Læraðr

Who doesn't?

Mithical

s/SE/balpha

North Læraðr

21:49

?

Tsundoku

@NorthLæraðr That reminds me of Fashionable Nonsense. Two people submitted a fake article to a lit crit journal and it got accepted. Then they exposed the journal...

North Læraðr

dang

Mithical

balpha, Berlin, Germany

148k 40 463 636

status-completed bug chat feature-request support discussion markdown

Sid

All of this reminds me, my last question on Literaure is still unanswered.

Mithical

Basically built Bonfire (SE chat).

Sid

21:50

Whoever answers it, gets my vote!!(Nah, not really)

North Læraðr

@Sid So if I answer it....

Rand al'Thor

@Sid Ah, an ID question.

3

Q: Name of this book about a man who entered a relationship with a shady woman and then had to kill people

I read a book around 8 months back in my aunt's home. However, I can't seem to remember the book's name although I remember it was a pretty well-known phrase. The book seemed to be of the 21st Century and I read it in English. I also can't seem to remember the name of the Author but I am vaguely...

story-identification

Might as well link it in case anyone here can answer ;-)

Sid

Also, I actually found the answer to this myself a few months back, in rather funny circumstances

Tsundoku

It's neither a Shakespeare play nor the Epic of Gilgamesh, so I'll have to pass.

Mithical

@Sid I'd say it's about a 50/50 chance of getting an answer to my questions, so don't worry, you're not alone in not getting answers. ;)

@Sid Post a self-answer!

Sid

21:54

I would post an answer but I am too lazy to do a proper writeup.

North Læraðr

Mine has a 100% answer rate, I don't know what y'all are complaining about

Sid

Plus, it's a nice mystery. People should be solving it. :P

Mithical

Hey @Gallifreyan could you by any chance please rename and synonymize simone-kern to sim-kern? Thanks

Transcript for