« first day (20 days earlier)      last day (23 days later) » 

12:00 AM
Did it work?
 
I don't want to refresh the page...
23:59 it should be over
See you again bash
 
00:00 UTC
 
The HATS ARE GONE :-(
5
See em next time in 11 months
 
AH
BYE BYE WINTER BASH 2020, WE WON'T SEE YOU AGAIN.
 
The Winter Bash webpage is still up!
 
12:03 AM
@DapperDuck and will be up, just the hats got stored away
 
@DapperDuck Yeah it will, but we can't get the hats...
 
Oh Okay!
 
I didn't refresh yet
 
user435118
Unrelated but I need 6,000 coins to redeem a t-shirt on this site and I have 5,999 :/
 
On the other page of mine, it's gone
Haha right after bash I have another case of Movin' On Up
1
A: Python: Issue while extracting specific item from an iteration of lists, ('string', )

U11-ForwardCommas make the values tuple, as below: >>> 1, (1, ) You don't need them, try: for row in new_accounts: name = row[0] user = row[1] date = row[2] If you want to store the 3 values all in a list, try: name = [] user = [] date = [] for x, y, z in new_accounts: name.append(x) ...

 
12:08 AM
Congratulations:
@Panda First Place - 41 Hats
@U11-Forward Second Place - 40 Hats
@double-beep Third Place - 39 Hats
2
 
Sad face.
 
Congratulations @Panda #1 - 41 hats
And then @U11-Forward I'm #2 - 40 hats
Congratulations @double-beep #3 - 39 hats
Congratulations @Glorfindel #4 - 38 hats
Congratulations @Vickel #5 - 34 hats
Congratulations @AnkitSharma #5 - 34 hats
:( WB is always so short...
Wouldn't it be nice like November throughout Feburary
Like 4 months
 
Much more hats
 
Thanksgiving hats!
 
12:10 AM
Much more secret hats to discover
And like 100 hats
That would be nice
And we also can have a Summer Bash
A big congratulations for @Panda!!! #1 - got all hats!
2
 
All the hats!?!?!?!?
 
@DapperDuck Yeap
 
Even Wa-Boushi!?!?!?!
 
@DapperDuck Yeah panda got'em all
 
@Xnero Not retracting a flag. I didn't retract any flags. And I didn't flag anything at all in the Winter Bash period.
 
12:14 AM
Very Impressive!
 
Anyway I have something to be happy about #2 network wide and #1 on SO by 4 hats
When will there be a blog?
 
If you think about it, winter bash hats is a metric of who is the most active on the site
So by that measure:
 
@DapperDuck Not voting related. I didn't get any votes on the 16th nor the 17th. Though I did get two on the 18th.
 
Congratulations to @U11-Forward for being the most active user on Stack Overflow, by collecting 40/41 winter bash hats!
I see
 
@DapperDuck Thanks you very much :)
Panda missed out on all the fun :-) at the end
 
12:17 AM
@Catija I feel so.. naked :(
 
@U11-Forward which hat were you missing? Wa-boushi?
 
@DapperDuck Yeah Wa-Boushi
haha
 
Lol what how?
 
@DapperDuck Inspect element
 
I really underperformed this year.
 
user435118
12:22 AM
@Catija Can you reveal the secret triggers?
 
I guess? I think we've done that in the past.
 
Hehe.. don't count on it. The Balalaika was super. No one figured it out. It'll be reused next year :)
@Catija No...! Don't give it away.
 
Ok.
 
Let us ponder that until next year :)
 
user435118
@Scratte No, I want to know.
 
12:24 AM
I don't even remember what balalaika was.
 
user435118
It's got me so curious now.
 
@Scratte it's tradition to keep secret hats, well, secret, if the trigger was not discovered
 
Ah. Yeah. That sounds familiar.
 
@Xnero Yes.. like the meaning of life and is it possible to make a replicator and can gravity be circumvented.
 
12:25 AM
@U11-Forward now you are getting into orbit ;)
 
@Vickel Haha yeah
 
@Catija You said it once in this room when I asked about :)
 
I'm a bit addled after the holidays.
 
user435118
@Scratte I already know the meaning of life.
 
@Scratte it's also somewhere on a meta post
 
12:26 AM
@Xnero Me too. But no one agrees with me.
 
Wow Vickel got a last minute Edward hat...
So puts him 5th with 35 hats!
@AnkitSharma Wow that's bad news for you...
 
user435118
@Scratte Tell me.
 
I'm happy I got the New Years hat. Someone said I was cute in it :$
 
@U11-Forward not really last minute, I was waiting for that hat since yesterday, but it didn't trigger
 
@Xnero There is none.
 
12:27 AM
Congratulations @Panda #1 - 41 hats
And then @U11-Forward I'm #2 - 40 hats
Congratulations @double-beep #3 - 39 hats
Congratulations @Glorfindel #4 - 38 hats
Congratulations @Vickel #5 - 35 hats
Congratulations @AnkitSharma #6 - 34 hats
@Vickel Yeah 35
 
user435118
@Scratte I don't agree with you either then :)
 
@Xnero Humans want meaning for things.. wanting something and it being true is not the same thing. But we like to invent it.
 
44 ?
 
... 44? No.
 
user435118
@Scratte I know that. But I have substantial proof that my meaning of life is true.
 
12:29 AM
Have y'all read Nightfall ?
 
@Catija Do self-answers count for TikTop?
I forgot
 
(It relates to the idea of trying to understand the world and understand the meaning of things)
 
@Catija aeh sorry 42, from a hitchhikers guide to the universe
 
... if you're talking about hitchhiker's guide, it's 42.
 
@Xnero If that makes you happy.. have it :)
@Catija That has a slight issue though.. ;)
 
12:35 AM
@Catija and @YaakovEllis Could we have a ranking for the "rookies", the 1st time WB participants?
 
@Vickel True
 
We'd have to figure out what classified someone as first timers.
 
@Catija someone who joined SE after the previous WB?
 
@U11-Forward I should have known you were using inspect element, but I thought there was a small chance there might have been that many hats, and you used a script lol
 
So... you're gonna create a new account every year to qualify? 😉
 
12:37 AM
@DapperDuck Of course how is it possible that i get that much :-)
 
that's how it is done in sports leagues..
 
Nonono.. that would be unfair.
 
For the rookies, the account should be active for 2 months before
 
There were 42 hats if you count the equinox as two.
 
@Catija no way, sure, but I see the possibility
 
12:38 AM
How many people got the moon for the equinox?
I've only seen people with the sun hat
 
I don't even remember which I got.
 
@DapperDuck I did.. I think you mean the cheese. It doesn't look like the moon. Maybe that's why no one was wearing it :D
 
@DapperDuck I got the moon
On SO I won!
 
12:59 AM
@U11-Forward congrats and to @IanCampbell in 2nd place, who gets the "rookie of the year" award
 
@IanCampbell Congrats for #2 on SO
@cs95 Congrats for #2 as well
On so
@Nick Congrats for #4 on SO
We can make this our WBCTE party
 
Oh I had 24 hats
Sad to see them go all away
 
WBCTAE
Sorry I mean ^
 
and I had the moon
 
WBCTAE stands for "Winter Bash comes to an end"
Or add a "p" WBCTAEP "Winter Bash comes to an end party"
 
1:09 AM
oh
Do you think we should have hat for discovering the trigger for a hat?
 
@U11-Forward need to go and take my hat's off...
 
@Vickel Haha I will keep 'em on
 
@U11-Forward I actually also like my avatar, so maybe I'm not rushing it
 
@Vickel Yeah
 
@U11-Forward Congrats to you too - a big effort and a convincing win.
 
1:17 AM
@Nick Thank you! Well my goal was network-wide where I was #2 :-)
 
@Nick you did very well yourself, congrats
 
@Vickel yeah, you should keep it for a while - although I preferred it with the flag as well
 
@Nick yeah the flag was GREAT, it overflowed outside the avatar's regular space
btw. no sequel, just wasn't in the mood and spent too much time on my Eddiwe
 
hat for discovering trigger for a secref hat
 
@U11-Forward that's a tough one, #2 is still a great achievement. I was very happy just being #10
 
1:20 AM
@Nick You were #10, nice!
 
@Nick you were 4th on SO
 
Anyone downvoted my suggestion for winter bash 2021
 
@Vickel yeah, was equal #3 until the last minute when cs95 got another hat :(
 
@Nick Ah unlucky...
 
@Nick I remember I was in the mix for 3rd too, but I failed on the rep hunting and eliza ones
 
1:24 AM
"Hat for discovering the trigger for a secret hat" is incredibly subjective, and caused no end of arguments over whether a claimed trigger was close enough or not.
 
@U11-Forward I'm pretty happy considering that other than "Rep Hunter" I didn't really try that hard - I could have got some of the question badges if I'd been willing to spend the time thinking up some decent questions - the problem with having high rep is that people seem more willing to downvote your questions unless they are really good, and even then they still tend to attract revenge downvotes
 
@Mark "is incredibly subjective" seriously?
 
@Nick Yeah exactly.. I was a bit lucky for Comin' Up Roses
 
no opinions on that, the one who discovered the exact trigger wins the hat
 
But actually the key question hat, the Edward I got on MSE and ELL
 
1:26 AM
Theres an Edward hat?
 
0
Q: Winter Bash Leader-board search bar not working

U11-ForwardSince now Winter Bash has ended, we can't see each others hats. But supposedly in the Winter Bash Leader-board you can search users by their name and see how many hats they got. But I tried searching here on SO for some users (I didn't even mention that there isn't any search bar for SE network-w...

 
@Score-6 not any more! :)
 
@Score-6 Yeah there was:
 
Man, Winter Bash should have ended later
 
@Score-6 Yeah
 
1:27 AM
@Nick if you go for the SE overall, you can get those on any other site, too
 
can you stop pinging me
 
@Vickel Yeah like me
@Score-6 Me? sorry.
 
lol you did it again
 
Oh sorry
My habit
 
@Vickel true... but then I would have to sign up for some other sites and still come up with some questions... I was just too busy to make the effort
 
1:29 AM
@Nick You can get gimme space for signing up on a site
(could)
 
@Score-6 yeah, I got it for code review. Even answered a question while I was there! :)
 
@Nick at the end it's a bit of the hat's hunting philosophy behnd the scenes, make the users aware of other sites they might like and become useful contributors
 
you get take this for the informed badge
 
and that too...
 
that what?
 
1:31 AM
that hat on code review
@Vickel indeed - but I don't seem to have enough time even for SO...
 
@Nick I take 15 days of vacation, just for the heck of it ;)
^ just kidding
 
@Nick snaphat? hanafuda?
4
Q: Hat list kinda blocks off link to meta site

Goodie Woodie As you can see, the "Meta user" is very close to the hat list and, sometimes, when I'm visiting the meta, I accidentally click on the hat list. Is this by design or a bug?

 
@Score-6 both on SO...
@Vickel I usually take June/July off to travel - not much of that last year though! Hoping to do better this year.
 
@Nick planning to come to Europe?
 
@Vickel not this year. We'll stick with touring Australia. Plan is (WA border permitting) to head to places like Karijini and Ningaloo
 
1:48 AM
@Nick I've been to Perth and Lancelin, for Windsurfing, but never made it up further North, sounds like great natural parks, hot like hell and mosquitos for free :)
 
@Vickel very hot and humid in summer, but beautiful in winter, usually around 27-30C
 
that's true forgot to turn the "flat Earth" upside down. Your June is our winter, I was in WA between Dez to Feb
 
@Vickel my June is my winter! :)
Even southern WA in summer can bake, at least it's not usually as humid as up north
 
I hope there's a Summer Bash 2021
 
Yeah
 
1:56 AM
@Vickel do you not know the earth is round?
 
@Nick I met 2 Aussies here in Portugal who were from WA. One said: I work in construction, I need long trousers only three times a year!
@Score-6 no summer bash I'm afraid: I asked 5 years ago: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/246871/summer-bash-2015
 
@Vickel they can't even explain the flights from Santiago to Sydney!
 
good bye all, 2am WB is over, uff, get some sleep and back to real stuff tomorrow :)
 
2:18 AM
@Vickel that's about right. Where I am it's a lot cooler... it was only 17.6 yesterday!
 
bye
 
3:04 AM
Farewell WB 2020
 
let community freeze this chat room
 
I think we should keep this room for another 2 weeks or so
So we can see chat about the blog
 
3:23 AM
@Vickel @U11-Forward Congratulations to both of you. After I missed Christmas I was out for sure.
 
@IanCampbell Ehh.. aren't you nr. 2 on Stack Overflow?
 
I meant out of the running for first.
 
3:53 AM
I think nr. 2 is still impressive.
 
 
1 hour later…
4:54 AM
Wonder where is Panda, he missed out on our WBCTAE party
 
5:19 AM
@U11-Forward thanks
 
@AnkitSharma Good job for #5 even with your trip!
 
hehehehhe
There is always next year ;)
 
@AnkitSharma Yeah
 
5:38 AM
Ohh so after winterbash they are rolling out swag, nice
 
Wonder when is the blog gonna be published
 
patience my padawan
 
@AnkitSharma Lol padawan
 
 
5 hours later…
Rob
10:22 AM
@Luke Last year, on the 15th.
 
10:32 AM
Link for people who want to see the Winter Dash Leaderboards now that the links are gone - Winter Dash 2020.
 
 
3 hours later…
2:02 PM
Wait, so... will balalaika be revealed?
 
2:28 PM
No :) You get next year to try to work it out all over again :)
 
2:52 PM
If it's unsolved, they leave it in place for the next year?
 
3:04 PM
@BenI. That's tradition
 
The thing is, it's such a weird trigger, I'm not sure anyone would ever get it - do y'all have a current hypothesis?
 
I had two. Both has to do with doing something 3 times.
One was comment on posts on 3 separate days. But that kind of seem not to be the case, unless a user had a comment removed.
We ruled out a lot of stuff though. It's unrelated to edits, posting, reviewing. flagging.
Unless it's just: Do something for 3 separate days.
Or: Log in on 3 separate days.
I noted that users got at after 3 days, so that's why I kind of got into thinking it must be something-three.
 
how about comments?
 
@double-beep That's what didn't fit with that one user that did't post a comment on all three days.
It could also be: Post comments on two separate days. Delete a comment on the third.
 
3:31 PM
@Scratte Oof.
That would be tough to figure out!
 
@BenI. it would be devious and brilliant :)
 
I've no problem with the trigger not being revealed but I don't like he fact that we have to wait a year now before we can figure it out
 
You can just pretend it will never be revealed then :P
 
@Scratte Curious why three?
 
@Catija The balalaika has three strings?
 
3:42 PM
@Catija Because users got it three days into the Winter Bash. It also didn't seem to be a date hat, since some users got it on a separate, but later day.
 
Ah, yeah.
 
Don't mind my pings.. I'm a typoist.. :(
3
 
:D That's always been a struggle - one of my favorite things about my ultimate powers is being able to perpetually edit everything... but I also have an aversion to pings, which means that I have to choose between editing a chat message that includes a ping and re-pinging someone.
 
I've had some complaints. Sometimes, I show them this.. but that doesn't seem to make it better :D
 
Well... I mean, I wouldn't expect it to.
:D
 
3:47 PM
Me either.. but I don't hate fun :D
I think we should have Australian Winter Bash too :) That way we'd have it twice a year :)
 
I used to have my sound off in chat for the longest time and then I started using MSE chat and I love the Star Trek ping.
The SO ping is ... not pleasant, though.
 
I've never tried chat on meta.stackexchange.
I like the Stack Overflow one. But I don't really like the one here. It sounds like a ping that's died and come back.
 
4:03 PM
How much work is the Winter Bash for Stack?
 
please................................
 
 
1 hour later…
5:12 PM
@Catija Wait. If you edit a pinging message, it re-pings the recipient?
 
@BenI. Yes.
@Scratte A good amount. We have to get artists to create the hats and the WB home page, devs to build stuff and program hat triggers, and be around to support stuff that breaks... CMs to come up with the concepts for the hats and the triggers as well as write blog posts and keep tabs on stuff. I think the artwork was actually contracted out to someone this year rather than doing it in-house.
 
5:26 PM
@BenI. It'd be nice if edits just made the badge rather than the sound - so if you'd already read the message, you'd be alerted in chat that it'd been changed but if you hadn't, you wouldn't get two pings in short succession that were for the same message. Edits right now often feel like someone's urgently trying to get my attention.
 
Rob
5:36 PM
Twiki the Buck Rogers robot would be the most annoying chat ping.
 
5:46 PM
@Catija I see. So twice a year is probably a little too much. How about a month a year instead? :)
 
:D It was about three weeks, yes? Honestly, keeping it one more week into the year would give us more time to come back from vacation and wrap things up a bit... but I'm not sure. I assume the overhead once it's in a stable place is minimal... and people who were out for the holidays could have a bit more of a chance for fun when they're back to work.
 
Uh wait, can't you get everything designed for the two bashes in one go?
 
Double work, even if done at the same time, would still require 1.5-1.75 more time...
 
@nobody The first week is probably where all the meta about "I did this thing, and I didn't get my hat" comes in. It's also where everyone is pinging the community managers for "Is this the trigger for that hat?"
 
I see...
 
5:51 PM
If we have to create ~40 hats for each, it takes nearly as much time to come up with them, create artwork, program them in one go as in two separate ones... unless everything between the two is identical... and we only have one WB engine, so we couldn't even program the full set for both WB events at once, we'd have to program stuff right before the rollout of the second one.
 
@Catija I mean it would not have hurt to have kept in going an entire work week into the new year. Maybe also have people go for the harder hats kicking the new year off with 10 posts on a day :)
 
Would have hurt?
 
off by a negative ;(
 
:D
 
Have you considered having a meta post about hat designs? I mean there's a lot of people on Stack. I'm sure some of those are great hat designers :) You could pick the ones that gets the highest scores.
 
5:54 PM
Actually, I'm think having two bashes might reduce the novelty of the event. We might get bored of it soon, so one bash is fine, just a little longer and with more secret hats
 
Yes.. more secret hats. Those were just awesome :)
 
@Scratte And get the community to build the website too, and maybe code the triggers for some of the non-secret hats... :)
 
@Scratte ... we could and we technically have... but part of the fun of it is having it all be a surprise and ... well... sometimes the work of outsourcing work is almost as much work as just doing it yourself. For the artwork this year, for example, we retouched even the older hats just to have them all share a style and feel unified.
 
@nobody Not sure about having community members messing with the code of the website :)
 
@Scratte I know, a security fiasco :). It was more of a joke
 
5:58 PM
@Catija I see. It does take some following up and answering questions.
 
BTW, this year I guess a significant portion of the work done was for building the hat dash anti-cheating heuristics
 
I don't know how many users played the game. I only did for a very short time.
 
I only looked for ways to cheat, I didn't play
 
@Scratte Kinda depends. We have used about 5-6 hat designs from the "make your own hat" moose/silly putty entry posts.
But I don't think we' asked any of the people who submitted any questions about them - well, I would sometimes ask what the triggers people thought would match their hat should be but that was before I was hired.
 
I'm sure I could find a lot of devious triggers ;)
Not as devious as interaction with a post from a certain employee though..
 
6:36 PM
hat-dash?
 
@BenI. A game that was on the on winterbash home page
 
I missed that.
I just collected hats.
 
7:34 PM
@BenI. Its still there on the winterbash site in case you want to see it
 
7:44 PM
Where's the game? I don't see it.
 
I came for the blog 😂 anyways good nigh
 
8:02 PM
@Scratte Yeah... that's not gonna happen again.
@BenI. Use the Konami Code to access it.
 
What?
I'm sure that is very meaningful text, but not to me.
 
8:15 PM
@Catija You need any ideas, let me know :)
 
@BenI. the Konami code is a series of button presses from old video games - mostly arrow keys - up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, then the letters B A and enter.
 
@Catija Just tried that. It didn't work :D
 
Worked for me in an incognito window.
 
What site are we entering?
 
The winterbash site... to unlock hat dash.
You presumably have it unlocked already - but I don't think Ben unlocked it previously, so I was explaining how to do so now.
 
8:19 PM
whoooooa
 
I think you're pulling everyone's leg here :D
 
...
For reference, @BenI. - the Wikipedia page about the Konami Code.
 
I just clicked this :)
 
... Right... but you unlocked it during WB...
 
@Catija By logging in! :P
 
8:23 PM
:sigh:
 
Isn't there a direct link to the hat dash? Where you don't log in at all?
 
No
 
I remember playing it before even having logged in. It doesn't popup like when you're logged in.
 
The only way to access the game was to unlock it during WB, which gives you access to the leaderboards or to use the Konami code to unlock it but not get access to the leaderboards.
 
Yes, but I played with as anonymous with no leaderboard.
 
8:26 PM
... which would have required the code.
 
I didn't use that code.. :) I just played it for 5 minutes and gave up
Here - run-with-the-hats.. no logging in and no code :)
 
OK - that wasn't a link I was aware of. Not sure where it came from - but that's not the link nobody shared, which just links to WB, and does require the code to get to the game.
 
Huh? I just played it by hitting enter and it started.
 
56 mins ago, by nobody
@BenI. Its still there on the winterbash site in case you want to see it
On this page? In incognito mode?
 
@Catija No.. on that page, no code helped me. Pressing the down button just moves the page down a little.. :)
The other link came from Zoe the 1337 Princess's Answer to Do you see a way to cheat at Hat Dash?
 
8:33 PM
@Scratte ... yeah, same for me... but when I go through the code and hit enter, the game button appears.
 
That doesn't happen for me.
 
:shrug:
 
I tried in chrome too :)
 
It works for me on my mac in chrome.
 
It works in Edge!
So that means we can play this until next year? :D
 
8:39 PM
Probably... it should be like the knitting, so until we overwrite it with next year's stuff, it'll stick around.
 
But the leaderboard is closed, no?
 
As far as I'm aware, yes.
The blog post seems to indicate that.
Nicolas Chabanovskii on January 05, 2021
Winter Bash 2020 has come to an end. While we’re packing the hats into boxes to put them back on the shelf for next year, let’s take a look at a few hat-wearing avatars that brought a smile to our faces. Catija Rory Alsop Snow Adrian Mole Tsundoku Those are just a few. Check them…
 
I those some of those users :)
^ + know..
 
HAHA
I was surprised that Nicolas included me in there.
 
9:03 PM
I think perhaps the best avatar hat combinations were picked :)
 
 
2 hours later…
10:46 PM
Hey @YaakovEllis, is the leaderboard supposed to include my top cheated scores?
 
11:04 PM
@Ollie your personal top scores does. The overall one does not
 

« first day (20 days earlier)      last day (23 days later) »