The h Bar

peterh

02:49

Mods are revolting the SE. Last time it was not really effective, as I can remember - Monica did not get her diamonds back. The never before seen SE "lead", who expelled Monica, has left the company to the linkedin not so much later. Part of the mods came back, part of them did not. SE generated yet another bunch of documents, regulations.

More Anonymous

05:31

If I have an isometry in my geodesic deviation vector? Does it mean my geodesics are parallel?

I think this is wron?^

*wrong

Silly Goose

is 2.143 the last line a correct usage of the tensor product symbol?

I would expect composition not tensor product

Silly Goose

06:23

well i guess i would think that the usage of tensor product symbols seems dubious in 2.143 overall

Slereah

07:37

The most terrifying thing about reading old secret documents is thinking that people this stupid are given that much government power

Reminds me of that Feynman anecdote when some general asks him if he could make a tank that runs on sand

Slereah

09:29

The wiki article on Klein geometry doesn't even link the original Klein article

John Rennie

11:35

What Every Physicist Should Know About String Theory

5

This is in a couple of days. Hopefully it will be interesting for those of us who have some QFT but know nothing about string theory.

ACuriousMind

Most physicists need to know exactly nothing about string theory :P

Slereah

Many physicists know nothing of string theory and yet still feel like having opinions

user 858770

11:51

Does this push the boundaries of what it means to be a physicist.

ZeroTheHero

12:22

Interesting post from another site regarding AI-generated contents: academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5286/90441

2

ACuriousMind

12:33

@ZeroTheHero also pay attention to the edit history: The VP of Community does not have time to actually address any of the concerns users have, but he does have time to personally remove the featured label from unwanted meta posts

ZeroTheHero

@ACuriousMind Thanks for highlighting this small but revealing point.

user 858770

Sounds like a power trip.

Revealing a hidden agenda to "clean things up."

ACuriousMind

what on earth are you talking about?

user 858770

Your revealing point.

ACuriousMind

Yes, what does that have to do with a "hidden agenda to clean things up" or a "power trip"?

user 858770

12:41

A judicious use of time management by the VP.

rob

12:56

The removed featured might be a test of the "strike," since restoring that tag is a moderation action, which the moderators have said they won't engage in.

user 858770

One Big Fist

►

Classic union flick.

✊

ZeroTheHero

13:12

@rob This whole story is just sad. Nothing was broken (at least in PSE) so why force a fix?

user 726941

284

Q: Moderation Strike: Stack Overflow, Inc. cannot consistently ignore, mistreat, and malign its volunteers

Introduction As of today, June 5th, 2023, a large number of moderators, curators, contributors, and users from around Stack Overflow and the Stack Exchange network are initiating a general moderation strike. This strike is in protest of recent and upcoming changes to policy and the platform that...

Amit

I have a title for the next episode

TSSB - The Stack Strikes Back

rob

14:16

@ZeroTheHero The claim was a that (a) software GPT detectors have a pretty high error rate, that (b) the errors discriminate against users who aren't native writers of English, and that (c) the geography of GPT-related suspensions suggests those biases apply on the SE network. I think those are legitimate concerns. But the company essentially forbade most GPT-related removals and suspensions, based on their internal analysis, and doubled down when the moderators were unconvinced.

If they had asked the moderator corps for more data before (or instead of) issuing orders to their volunteers, the whole shitstorm might have been avoided.

Slereah

what if the post say "As an artificial intelligence, ..."

as it often does

rob

@Slereah I don't know how much of the private moderator guidance I can share publicly.

But posts whose copy-paste includes the "regenerate response" prompt, and similar, are taken as an "admission" of chatbot usage.

Slereah

You can tell that Urs Schreiber is a true mathematician because his powerpoints are horrendous

आर्यभट्ट

@rob agree.

What u said to zero the hero.

Relativisticcucumber

14:36

@Slereah @SillyGoose ur idol

hello - I have a question about the metric in GR. so if a metric tensor is defined to be a bilinear map from two tangent vectors to a real number, does this mean the components of the metric tensor are the "real number" in discussion here? if the metric tensor can be written as $g = g_{\mu,\nu}dx^{\mu}\otimes dx^{\nu}$, I am a bit confused on how these two tangent vectors serve as the inputs to the metric tensor

Slereah

It is the same thing as every tensor, your actual tensor is $g$, which you can decompose in a basis as $g = g_{\mu\nu} dx^\mu \otimes dx^\nu$, and then the application of the two vectors is done by $$g(X,Y) = g_{\mu\nu} dx^\mu(X) \otimes dx^\nu(Y)$$

The dual basis projects your vector to their components via $$dx^\mu(X) = dx^\mu(X^\nu \partial_\nu) = X^\nu dx^\mu(\partial_\nu) = X^\nu \delta^\mu_\nu = X^\mu$$

Alternatively you can consider $g_{\mu\nu} = g(\partial_\mu, \partial_\nu)$

The components are the inner products of the basis vectors

Relativisticcucumber

if $\partial_{\nu}$ and $dx^{\mu}$ are different bases, why is their product delta ?

Slereah

The dual basis is generally defined to be specifically the basis such that $dx^\mu(\partial_\nu) = \delta^\mu_\nu$

You can show that there always exists such a basis of the cotangent bundle

Relativisticcucumber

ok i see

and one more question: so if we have this criteria that a metric tensor must map two tangent vectors to a real number, i see that $g$ satisfies that, but is it necessary that the metric tensor should be invariant ? im not seeing how this necessarily comes from the definition, but isn't that the essential point of the metric tensor?

ACuriousMind

14:57

"invariant" under what?

Relativisticcucumber

@ACuriousMind coordinate transformation, right?

ACuriousMind

You used the word, you tell me what you mean by it :P

Relativisticcucumber

oh no i dont understand

or, i dont understand the question i mean

ACuriousMind

What do you mean by the metric tensor being "invariant under coordinate transformation"?

And in what way do you think that property - whatever exactly you mean by it - is not just part of the general definition of what a well-defined tensor is?

Relativisticcucumber

ok i think my confusion is maybe in muddling the line element and metric tensor. i see that tensors are defined by obeying the tensor transformation laws, so obviously they are invariant under transformation. then, i know the line element also is a quantity that is invariant under coordinate transformation, so i guess i need to answer the question of how the definition of the metric tensor gets us to the line element because the line element is a scalar and the metric tensor is a tensor

but somehow i feel they are the same thing so i must be muddling something

they = metric tensor and line element

ACuriousMind

15:10

For any curve $\gamma : I\to M$, you get its "length" according to $\int_\gamma \sqrt{g(\dot{\gamma},\dot{\gamma})}$

the "line element" notation $\mathrm{d}s^2 = \dots$ is just a mnemonic, you shouldn't consider $\mathrm{d}s$ as an object that exists independently of the curve whose length you are interested in

Relativisticcucumber

also i feel that obeying the tensor transformation law does not follow from mapping two tangent vectors to a real number. i interpret it to be the case that a tensor is a quantity that can map from two tangent vectors to a real number, right? so then it's not necessarily the case that any entity that obeys this map should be conserved under coordinate transformation? or am i misunderstanding?

Amit

It may be that the line element is a slightly loaded term, it has all kinds of associations that you need when doing integrals for example. But I think to understand the metric tensor more simply you can just think of it as the map that defines an inner product between a pair of vectors

ACuriousMind

@Relativisticcucumber you're misunderstanding, the transformation laws of the components follows directly from defining the tensor to be a bilinear map on the tangent space at every point

it's just linear algebra: AT each $p\in M$, $T_p M$ is a vector space, and so bilinears on it are elements of the vector space $T^\ast_p M\otimes T^\ast_p M$. $\mathrm{d}x^\mu$ are a basis for $T^\ast_p M$, and so you can expand any such bilinear tensor $T$ as $T_{\mu\nu}\mathrm{d}x^\mu\otimes\mathrm{d}x^\nu$

naturallyInconsistent

@Relativisticcucumber There are many types of tensors...

ACuriousMind

from the definition of $T$ not being coordinate dependent and the known transformation of $\mathrm{d}x^\mu$ via chain rule, the transformation behaviour of $T_{\mu\nu}$ follows without further assumptions

Relativisticcucumber

15:16

@ACuriousMind but the derivation that i saw for the transformation law is to say "tensors are conserved" and "chain rule exists" and then to derive the law, so this seems circular?

naturallyInconsistent

@Relativisticcucumber Most new theories sound circular in its postulates.

Relativisticcucumber

not conserved -- invariant , sorry

@naturallyInconsistent but surely it's not actually ?

naturallyInconsistent

I actually think it should be
Münchhausen trilemma

The only one physics and maths may use is the circular argument, hence we have to axiomatise / postulate, and then work from there

ACuriousMind

@Relativisticcucumber I don't understand where the circularity is supposed to be

ZeroTheHero

@rob The points you reported actually muddle the issue, which is how AI will affect the quality of the questions and answers. There may or may not be a true geographical bias but if there is then origin information should be masked, and if this is not possible immediately then a fix should be in the works.

I don't follow closely the related closures on PSE but your post on our Meta suggests the actions taken were appropriate, so I still wonder why this has to be a system-wide requirement. If there are local abuses deal with those locally.

Relativisticcucumber

15:22

@ACuriousMind if we say "this entity takes two tangent vectors to a real number", does this statement alone mean "this entity" is necessarily a tensor? i think this might clear my confusion up perhaps

Amit

Add multi-linearly and yes

Relativisticcucumber

@ACuriousMind wait this means yes to my question i think

Amit

Also symmetrically and non degenerately :)

Relativisticcucumber

i see -- so these two definitions of tensors are equivalent it would seem

Amit

Defining a tensor by the transformation law is afaik a heuristic, maybe it can be shown to be equivalent to the more axiomatic approach but idk

ZeroTheHero

15:27

@rob I mean don't get me wrong: Mother SE is trying to muddle the issue with bias stuff. It may very well a legitimate concern but the solution offered is not a solution.

ACuriousMind

@ZeroTheHero We don't understand it either! And SE refuses to explain it in a way that makes sense

it seems they've gotten some data that GPT detectors are unreliable (they are!) and immediately concluded that since moderators make their decisions mostly based on such detectors (they don't!), most of the suspensions issued must be invalid, but they did not present any reasoning to actually support that jump in logic

and instead of asking moderators how we actually moderate, they just dropped that policy on us

Slereah

Imagine that you got it wrong and instead of removing an AI you removed a post so badly written you confused it with one

Amit

@Amit correction about that -- these two additional conditions apply only for an inner product, not a general tensor

ACuriousMind

@Slereah I am beginning to suspect that people who communicate all day in corporate speak may actually not understand how different GPT output is from how normal people would answer an SE question :P

ZeroTheHero

Amit

15:38

Lol

ZeroTheHero

how many of those before they reached their decision...

Amit

Did things start going south when SE was acquired in 2021?

ACuriousMind

@Amit no

Amit

Ok

Interesting, thanks

Slereah

The site is run by the robots now

bolbteppa

16:02

@JohnRennie It will likely be an updated version of this:

What Every Physicist Should Know About String Theory: Edward Witten

►

Amit

@ZeroTheHero @Slereah I knew that was agent Smith at the board! 😂

Nah I hope it's allll a big misunderstanding and everyone will come to a good agreement, no need to be mean 😁

Slereah

16:26

ncatlab.org/nlab/show/gravitational+instanton

Some articles of nlab are smaller than others

Amit

Lol, can be read instantoneously

Relativisticcucumber

16:41

bah i have another question -- so it says in Carroll that the partials $\{ \partial_{\mu} \}$ are a basis for the tangent space, but in another book i am reading, it defines the basis vectors for the tangent space as $e_{\mu} = \frac{\partial \mathbf{r}}{\partial x^{\mu}}$ -- are these contradictory ?

here $\mathbf{r}$ is the position vector

ACuriousMind

@Relativisticcucumber those are "intrinsic" vs. "extrinsic" definitions

the second definition makes only sense when your manifold is embedded into an $\mathbb{R}^n$ so that $\mathbf{r}$ makes sense

under the embedding of the manifold into that $\mathbb{R}^n$ the $\partial_\mu$ are sent to the $\frac{\partial\mathbf{r}}{\partial x^\mu}$

Relativisticcucumber

okay, so in the first definition, how does one obtain the components of the metric?

bolbteppa

Don't do GR without the position vector $\mathbb{r}$, you will get lost in formal abstraction whereas using the position vector everything is just basic calculus

ACuriousMind

@Relativisticcucumber didn't we already do that? You define $\mathrm{d}x^\mu$ as the dual basis to $\partial_\mu$, then expand $g$ in the basis $\mathrm{d}x^\mu\otimes\mathrm{d}x^\nu$ of $T^\ast M \otimes T^\ast M$

Relativisticcucumber

i guess what im not seeing is how this gets us $g$ explicitly as the second definition does because im seeing we have a manifold and then we know we have some $g$ that satisfies the bilinear relation mentioned above and that we can write this using the expression you mentioned but none of this seems to arrive explicitly at the components of the metric which i think needs to stem from the coordinates, right?

@bolbteppa bah

bolbteppa

16:48

Even defining something as simple as a derivative (covariant derivative) becomes a massive chore involving magical thinking about parallel transport which is really just the special case of the derivative of a constant vector field turned into some formal definition to satisfy pedants that it's actually more general instead of a special case

ACuriousMind

@Relativisticcucumber I'm not sure what you mean by "arrive explicitly at the components".

In practice, you will always be "given" a metric by someone specifying the $g_{\mu\nu}$ in one particular coordinate system

and if you want to know how these look in another coordinate system, you just use the transformation behavior of the $g_{\mu\nu}$

while the abstract approach insists that the idea of the coordinate-independent $g$ is important, you effectively almost never have any way of specifying a specific $g$ if not by its components

Relativisticcucumber

@ACuriousMind if i use the second definition i can literally get the metric elements. for example i can write down $x = r\text{cos}\theta$ $y = r\text{sin}\theta$, take the partials of $\mathbf{r}$ and take the inner products to get the elements of the metric arriving at a matrix that is $\text{diag}(1,r^2)$

ACuriousMind

@Relativisticcucumber sure, but the second approach has an embedding into $\mathbb{R}^n$

that embedding is additional data, in particular it is an isometry

in general, such isometric embeddings always exist, but may be very hard to find and the $n$ in the $\mathbb{R}^n$ may be larger than you like

(e.g. you can't embed a Klein bottle in $\mathbb{R}^3$)

Relativisticcucumber

so are you saying in the first approach we cannot write down the metric components explicitly? we need to be provided a metric? but this metric must come from somewhere, right?

ACuriousMind

@Relativisticcucumber A metric is additional data for an abstract manifold

when you have an embedding of manifold into another (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold, then you get an induced metric on it (that's what's happening with the embedded versions)

but if you just have the standalone manifold, there just is no metric on it

it's additional data you need to specify, you cannot compute it from somewhere

naturallyInconsistent

16:57

@ACuriousMind not if you are trying to integrate EFE themselves, e.g. numerical gravity

Relativisticcucumber

@ACuriousMind :o

naturallyInconsistent

@Relativisticcucumber I would have to point out that the moment you think that position is a vector, you are in a nice situation. In general, it is not a vector.

ACuriousMind

for instance, there's plenty of different metrics you can choose on a torus - there's the standard Riemannian metric on it you get from its embedding into Euclidean $\mathbb{R}^2$ but there's lot's of Lorentzian tori, e.g. flat ones or the Clifton-Pohl torus

all these are different (i.e. non-isometric) as pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, but they are diffeomorphic as smooth manifolds - the underlying manifold is just the 2-torus

that's what I mean when I say the metric is additional data and not some intrinsic property of a manifold

@naturallyInconsistent well, you'd start at least with initial data on a Cauchy surface, no?

naturallyInconsistent

@ACuriousMind I'm not sure, actually. Can we not do it in terms of Maxwellian local volume elements?

Relativisticcucumber

@ACuriousMind im so jumbled now. wait so does this mean that since we model spacetime as a manifold and we talk about all these metrics, we are assuming some embedding in some higher dimensional manifold?

ACuriousMind

17:01

@Relativisticcucumber no, what did I say to imply that?

as I said, the metric is just additional data

Relativisticcucumber

@ACuriousMind probably nothing i have a defective brain

let me reread ur messages

naturallyInconsistent

@Relativisticcucumber I would point out that the phase space, symplectic manifolds that we talk about, are all the same, except the specific Hamiltonian and the specific metric that corresponds to a specific system is different.

Relativisticcucumber

@ACuriousMind i think this ? not that u implied what i said but just that i guess im misunderstanding this

ACuriousMind

@Relativisticcucumber I'm saying that a standalone manifold has no natural metric on it

but that instead the metric is a choice of additional data (precisely the choice of a bilinear form on every tangent space at every point)

bolbteppa

@Relativisticcucumber It's not you it's the nature of having left the simple realm of the position vector, this is only the beginning you've been warned

ACuriousMind

17:03

you can make many different such choices, in general

Relativisticcucumber

@bolbteppa LOL

bolbteppa

It's a big price to pay just to be able to do GR on Klein bottles

naturallyInconsistent

@bolbteppa Exactly. The niceness of the Cartesian coördinate system that allows us to have trivial parallel transport and position vectors, is very difficult to pry ourselves away from

bolbteppa

I'm still stuck on simple things like deriving the Kerr solution which is insane if one looks into it

Amit

But the position vector is just a helpful conceptual device right? Imagining that every tangent space for example is actually defined by an absolute position within an embedding space. But it doesn't really simplify any calculation, does it? Just makes stuff easier to visualize?

Relativisticcucumber

17:07

@ACuriousMind but i thought this was the definition of a metric

ah sorry if im making u repeat urself. i have become very tangled with these concepts

can you explain what you mean by "additional data" and "natural metric"

bolbteppa

I have never in my life needed to picture multiple tangent spaces, it's all a big waste of time, you will get to the depths of string theory without any of that nonsense, it's really all just basic calculus applied to vector fields where you allow the basis vectors to vary, next one moves on to the physis

naturallyInconsistent

@Amit Not just that! I mean, how would you express the force of one hemisphere of a charged conductor on the other hemisphere? You usually express the force using spherical parametrisation but using Cartesian vectors, and then integrate. How are you going to express that dayum integral without the Cartesian trivial parallel transport?

Relativisticcucumber

@bolbteppa so you think there is no need for formalism #1 in general?

if i dont learn it i need to change my name to pseudorelativisticcucumber

bolbteppa

Well I can give you books where you need to do that, but it doesn't mean it's actually fundamental to the ideas at all

Amit

Hmm by choosing an appropriate chart? But I think I see what you mean, that charts become less arbitrary looking when you think in terms of a position vector?

naturallyInconsistent

17:11

@Amit How would you express "same direction" using merely charts?

ACuriousMind

@Relativisticcucumber Maybe let's take a step back and consider just the linear algebra notion of an inner product on a vector space $V$

Amit

Oriented atlas? :) idk, as you said I've usually done this kind of integrals assuming a transformation to cartesian space...

ACuriousMind

if I just give you a vector space, there's no inner product on it, right? I need to specify an inner product, e.g. by choosing a basis $e_i$ and then declaring what $\langle e_i,e_j\rangle$ for each pairing of the $e_i$ is.

the metric on a manifold is just a generalization of this concept where we need to provide such a specification on every tangent space simultaneously

and just like there can be many different inner products on a vector space, there can be many different inner products on a manifold

Amit

But I am starting to see that yes, more calculational machinery is apparently involved when working totally "intrinsically"

ACuriousMind

but when the vector space $V\subset W$ is a subspace of a vector space $W$ on which I already have an inner product, then $V$ inherits an inner product (just the restriction of the general inner product to the subspace)

Amit

17:16

Or at least more formalism is required

ACuriousMind

the same happens for a manifold embedded into an $\mathbb{R}^n$ where we use the Euclidean (or Minkowski) metric on $\mathbb{R}^n$ - it inherits a metric (the "induced" metric) - and that's what you're computing with the derivatives of the $\mathbf{r}$

naturallyInconsistent

@Amit It is fundamentally much worse than that. Once spacetime is curved, "same direction" is path dependent, even if you have well-defined parallel transport

Amit

Interesting, I guess it's not something I ran into yet

Not a GR veteran :)

Slereah

If it's not path dependent it is literally flat space

bolbteppa

If someone thinks GR is too easy using the position vector, I'll give you something too difficult ;)

BKL singularity

A Belinski–Khalatnikov–Lifshitz (BKL) singularity is a model of the dynamic evolution of the universe near the initial gravitational singularity, described by an anisotropic, chaotic solution of the Einstein field equation of gravitation. According to this model, the universe is chaotically oscillating around a gravitational singularity in which time and space become equal to zero or, equivalently, the spacetime curvature becomes infinitely big. This singularity is physically real in the sense that it is a necessary property of the solution, and will appear also in the exact solution of tho...

This is a god damn rabbit hole

naturallyInconsistent

17:24

You dont have to be fully into GR to know this. Just do any sphere shit and you should see it.

Imagine you have a vector on the North pole, pointing towards the South pole passing through x=0 line. If you move this vector down to the equator, it will be pointing the straight towards the South pole. Then you parallel transport it to the y=0 line via the equator, it will be pointing still straight towards the South pole. Now you transport it back up to the North pole, and you realise you have a 90 degree rotation of the original vector

bolbteppa

@Slereah is that stuff going in your GR book

Slereah

One thing you have to keep in mind is that it is a fundamentally weird idea to try to cling to flat space in GR

Like Euclidian geometry is just an idea

It's not a particularly obvious fact

@bolbteppa Not so far no

My book is more focus on like math

If I have to include all the cosmology and all the astrophysics it's gonna go from 100 chapters to 10,000

naturallyInconsistent

Our relationship with Euclidean geometry is actually rather nuanced. We utilise knowledge of it to construct all the curved stuff we want to talk about, but it is therefore not obvious to know where it starts and where it ends.

Much worse than a stereotypical love-hate relationship

It is more like "You cannot know that you do NOT live in a Euclidean geometry until you go out and look!"

Slereah

Also there are like

Equivalence things

Like part of the challenge of physical geometry is deciding what a "straight line" is

In mathematical geometry we just give a bunch of properties for lines, but we don't know what lines are

In physical geometry you have to decide what is or isn't a straight line

and that is one of those bootstrap problem

Amit

@naturallyInconsistent oh ofc I know this classic example that demonstrates what curvature does to a parallely transported vector in a closed loop trip. I am just not making the leap where calculationally it is easier to do with the extrinsic formalism, it's clearly easier to visualize extrinisically :)

naturallyInconsistent

17:35

@Amit Well, again, how would you even get to express the integral we want to calculate? This is one of those hangups that I really want to solve, so that then we can migrate fully to post-last-last-century maths in physics.

It is incredibly infuriating that when we want to actually compute some integrals, it is often the case we have to break out of the nice maths tools we have gotten, tensors, diff geo, etc, and go back to basically outdated maths.

Slereah

You can use fancy maths for anything in GR

But most people don't because it would be a huge pain

Amit

If you have the metric for this sphere, no matter how you obtained it, you can integrate on any path can't you? Oh yeah and the LC connection I guess :)

Or maybe you don't need it for the integration.. hmm I don't remember it comes up explicitly at least

Relativisticcucumber

@ACuriousMind ok ok that makes more sense

Amit

I do remember there is some problematic point in defining orientability, if you define the integral naively it doesn't work.. and it requires to loan some methods from measure theory, to define the tensor density correctly? This is all vague memory now, from watching a lecture by Schuller on integration on manifolds in GR

Slereah

You can also just define your volume form up to a sign

It's not like the sign matters that much*

Amit

17:43

Lol

Slereah

That's essentially what doing it with fancy measures does anyway

Amit

Yes, I just liked the asterisk

Will there be measure theory in the book? At least an appendix or two?

naturallyInconsistent

@Amit Setting up the framework to allow for integration is easy. How specifically to get the alignment of the directions so that you can express it as a specific integral is the difficult part.

Slereah

If you're bothered by orientation for integrals just use the double cover and divide by two

Slereah

18:50

@ACuriousMind If a space is connected, does there exist like some bunch of overlapping open sets connecting any two points

Slereah

19:00

probably wouldn't work as a definition otoh since the open sets also need to be connected

Silly Goose

@Relativisticcucumber honk

PM 2Ring

19:15

The mod strike post on MSE is currently at 42k views. meta.stackexchange.com/q/389811/334566

Physics Meta

19:43

0

Q: Is there somewhere that we could officially recommend "companion" stack exchanges?

Some stack exchanges are clearly closely related to each other. For example, "companions" of the physics stack exchange might include: History of Science and Mathematics Mathematics TeX Electrical Engineering Chemistry Quantum Computing Academia And others... While we don't want to discourage p...

discussion feature-request scope questions stackexchange

ACuriousMind

20:45

@Slereah path-connected definitely, merely connected I'd have to think about

Slereah

Picturing this

But open sets

naturallyInconsistent

@Slereah ewwww

Slereah

wot

Amit

decorative manifold!!

o manifold, o manifold, how lovely are thy fibers

Elements in Space

21:39

I don't see a post about the strike on Physics Meta. Are ya'll on board with the strike?

473

Q: Moderation Strike: Stack Overflow, Inc. cannot consistently ignore, mistreat, and malign its volunteers

Introduction As of today, June 5th, 2023, a large number of moderators, curators, contributors, and users from around Stack Overflow and the Stack Exchange network are initiating a general moderation strike. This strike is in protest of recent and upcoming changes to policy and the platform that...

discussion status-review community company

Amit

@ElementsinSpace Did you see this one?

ACuriousMind

@ElementsinSpace I personally support the goals of the strike, but we have laid out our reaction to the new policy here - for the time being we will continue to moderate as we have before.

Elements in Space

@Amit I did, that post doesn't mention the word "strike" (though it does appear in the comments).

Amit

21:54

Yeah, I consider the Physics.SE stance even better... If indeed the mods are not following the new policy, I suppose "civil disobedience" is in some ways even better than a strike isn't it? :)

user4539917

I wonder which sites are not striking?

(or are in full agreement with the policy)

Elements in Space

22:11

It makes more sense to me to try to actually try to get the network policy changed, rather than just ignoring it.

Amit

I'm sure it's not just a passive act of ignoring, but idk what is happening behind the curtains of mods - SE management interactions...

I would find it remarkable if there isn't any dialogue resulting from all this

ACuriousMind

22:49

@Amit There is a lot of communication going on behind the scenes. I wish more of it were public (and I think some it would make SE look better if it were public), but that's up to SE to decide.

Amit

mm, makes sense, thanks for sharing (what little you can)

PM 2Ring

The analysis has been provided to moderators, now, so we're mostly in the loop. We can discuss things more meaningfully with the CMs. (Can't share details, but wanted to let people know about the positive development.) — wizzwizz4 2 hours ago

wizzwizz4 is a mod on Retrocomputing

Currently, 616 people have signed the strike letter, including 4 former SE staff: Shog9, Tim Post, Jon Ericson & hairboat. And the strike announcement on MSE has 51k views.

Amit

23:20

@PM2Ring The information must flow! :)

peterh

@user4539917 Roughly all of the company statements show, they do not know, what to do with the SE site network, they consider themselves as Stack Overflow. I think, probably the face loss is their major reason to not sell or close the whole site network et al.

PM 2Ring

23:57

@Amit The Physics.SE attitude towards GPT has always been a little different to the SO policy.

Dec 6, 2022 at 17:39, by ACuriousMind

oh, sure, but if their posting volume is high and the answers are garbage we can already suspend people for "consistent low-quality contributions"

Dec 6, 2022 at 17:40, by ACuriousMind

I don't really want to have to make an argument whether the content is generated or not in that case

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