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Scortchi

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CrossValidated's general room for gossip, grumbles, and idle c...
Scortchi
Jan 16 12:41
@NickCox The Third Temptation by Denis Williams. Good, but 'experimental' in the blurb should've warned me it wouldn't be easy reading - especially not punctuated by frequent naps and hot toddies.
Scortchi
Jan 16 09:24
(Usually I focus on rooting out just the seedier ones,)
Scortchi
Jan 16 09:17
@StephanKolassa Well, I did carry out quite a thorough purge of spam profiles over the Xmas holiday; partly because I was nervous about LLMs, & partly because I was poorly & couldn't concentrate on my book. That may have inflated the 2024 figures a bit.
Scortchi
Jan 13 00:09
We typically get from half a dozen to a dozen profiles like this created every day. It's rare to see any subsequent activity at all on the accounts - once the profile's up the spammer's job is done.
Scortchi
Jan 12 23:54
Don't think you can flag them unless they interact with the site in some way.
Scortchi
Dec 26, 2024 09:30
I believe the issue is that SmokeDetector (see Charcoal) can't flag profiles, only posts.
Scortchi
Dec 26, 2024 09:23
189
Q: Spam Profiles are getting my goat. Could we have better tools for mods to deal with profile spam?

Journeyman GeekSuper User got hit by another batch of spammers creating profiles. They've got accounts on other sites from what I've heard from other mods and from the comments here. Last time it was streaming. Now it's insurance sales... with phone numbers (as of december, looks like they're spamming scammy fi...

feature-request support profile-page moderator-tools spam
Scortchi
Dec 26, 2024 09:23
@StephanKolassa See this Meta SE post:
Scortchi
Dec 25, 2024 17:42
Merry Xmas!
Scortchi
Dec 16, 2024 11:04
@User1865345 o1 perhaps. Not tried it myself
Scortchi
Dec 16, 2024 00:59
Thanks
Scortchi
Nov 28, 2024 19:58
@User1865345 Happy Thanksgiving!
Scortchi
Nov 2, 2024 19:36
retractionwatch.com
Scortchi
Nov 2, 2024 19:36
@Galen You might find this site interesting then:
Scortchi
Oct 27, 2024 12:49
@User1865345 I've removed it from the HNQ list
Scortchi
Oct 25, 2024 11:02
I think if I took the tour & perhaps looked at a few posts, I'd already doubt that it'd be all right to post 'Help Wanted' adverts as questions. Not sure it's a common enough misconception to merit a specific mention in help pages.
3
Scortchi
Oct 25, 2024 10:26
@NickCox Gatekeeping does seem to be gathering negative connotations - not sure why
Scortchi
Oct 24, 2024 09:42
I'm not sure what I think the default outcome ought to be; but note that moderators can refund a bounty (while it's still on offer), so you can flag if you think someone's losing the rep. they've staked on a now-closed q. would be harsh.
Scortchi
Oct 24, 2024 09:39
@J-J-J: Well in this case the q. was edited & re-opened within hours, so all's well that ends well.
Scortchi
Oct 23, 2024 18:03
@SextusEmpiricus: I cast the third close vote, & I might have refunded the bounty; but didn't, for the reason @whuber has divined. After all, you & others have already put some effort into elucidating what's needed to make the q. answerable - perhaps as a result of the prominence afforded it by the bounty - & it's nothing that ought to be unduly onerous to provide.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Oct 1, 2024 13:41
@mkt Not useful then?
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jul 12, 2024 20:34
78
A: How do I get my post deleted as quickly as possible since it is someone's intellectual property?

Shog9I'm glad you asked this, since it comes up a lot in support emails and flags. The answer probably isn't as simple as you'd like... So let's walk our way through it: First, take responsibility for the situation You've posted something you shouldn't have. Maybe you're violating someone else's right...

Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jul 12, 2024 20:34
This is a useful guide to redaction:
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jul 12, 2024 20:33
Ah, that's the q. that had 500 lines of code (& no data) to start with. I suspect you'd need to be very familiar with the particular area of application to succeed in guessing what it's about. I've explained to the O.P. how to delete it should they wish.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jun 30, 2024 22:11
(if you're wanting a copy, & not just deploring the cost of some textbooks)
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jun 30, 2024 22:08
@Galen abebooks.com/servlet/…-srp0--tile5&searchurl=ds%3D10%26kn%3DCounterexamples%2Bin%2BProbability%2BAnd%2BStatistics%26rollup%3Don%26sortby%3D17
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jun 21, 2024 18:17
@NickCox The very model of polite disagreement
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
May 10, 2024 12:48
@StephanKolassa Of course: I meant if someone wanted to get a feel for how Codidact is beforehand, participating in their Maths site might be a good idea
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
May 10, 2024 10:27
@User1865345 Yes I'm rather surprised it got as many up-votes as it did.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
May 10, 2024 10:25
@smci Codidcat already have a Maths site with a 'Statistics' tag, if anyone wants to dip their toe in.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
May 9, 2024 19:44
@User1865345 Same here. I don't even know what the answer itself's referring to - presumably something that happened on another site.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
May 9, 2024 18:21
Inept & overweening though S.E. Inc. may be, the company haven't interfered at all - to the best of my knowledge - in the moderation of this site over the nine years since I was elected moderator; nor do I think the ever-more-detailed iterations of codes of conduct have affected moderation since the days of 'Be nice'. I shouldn't like anyone to be deterred from standing for a moderator position by the thought that they'd have a lot of hassle to deal with from that source.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Mar 8, 2024 14:42
@CitizenandSociety Hullo! This is a rather quiet chat room, so better to get right to the point than waste time on preliminaries.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Feb 17, 2024 16:29
@CowperKettle What's 'beta' here? I'd guess a regression coefficient
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Feb 2, 2024 18:18
(Still have the book, but appear to have mislaid the accompanying floppy disk.)
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Feb 2, 2024 18:14
@Galen Reading Cornish-Bowden's Analysis of Enzyme Kinetic Data as an undergraduate was what got me interested in Statistics
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jan 2, 2024 17:55
0
Q: Google Cloud will be Sponsoring Cross Validated SE

SashaWe're excited to announce that Google will be sponsoring Cross Validated Stack Exchange beginning January 9th, going through March 31st. We wanted to give you a heads-up and walk you through what it will look like. How and where will the sponsorship be displayed? The sponsorship will be shown on ...

discussion featured site-sponsorship
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jan 2, 2024 17:55
Here we are:
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jan 2, 2024 17:51
O.K. it turns out we weren't meant to see the sponsor's banner yet; it's been removed & the Meta post will appear shortly
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jan 2, 2024 17:42
19
Q: AWS will be sponsoring Cross Validated

RosieWe're thrilled to announce that AWS will be sponsoring Cross Validated starting on July 18 through December 31. We wanted to give you a heads-up and walk you through what that means. How and where will the sponsorship be displayed? The sponsorship will be found on the right side of the header at ...

discussion
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jan 2, 2024 17:42
I imagine when the Meta post does appear it'll be similar to this one:
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jan 2, 2024 17:05
@User1865345 Diamond moderators were asked privately a couple of months ago if we knew of any particular concerns users might have about Google's sponsoring the site - we didn't. There was supposed to have been a post on our Meta from S.E. before the sponsorship started.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jan 1, 2024 02:15
Happy New Year!
3
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Oct 17, 2023 19:16
Of course we're happy to accept the ability to engage in a coherent conversation as sufficient evidence of 'semantic understanding' in a human; & reasonably enough, given what we know about humans. But in other cases we oughtn't to be deprived of the chance to test communication in & about a common environment: this is where the Turing Test falls short.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Oct 17, 2023 19:14
@whuber One can't. ChatGPT doesn't mean anything it says - because meaning something requires links between the words you use & things out there in the world. Such links were forged for the authors of the corpus on which ChatGPT was trained as they learnt their first language ('Apple!', says Mummy, pointing at an apple both her & Baby can see), but not for ChatGPT itself.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jun 5, 2023 21:52
Anyway I did join the strike: I hope it knocks some sense into the company, & they start to take a collaborative, evidence-based, approach to this & other issues. Good night!
2
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jun 5, 2023 21:40
I commented the other day:-"Perhaps we're fortunate, in a way, that ChatGPT's so bad at answering the kind of questions we get. An answer's being halfway decent already casts some doubt on the hypothesis that it's a thoughtless cut-&-paste job from a ChatGPT response. Anyway I don't think sites that have banned it outright have necessarily made the wrong decision for themselves."
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jun 5, 2023 21:38
@User1865345 That's a lot of flags! I can't vouch for all 500-odd moderators across 100-odd sites, but I haven't come across any advocacy for reliance on detectors alone - quite the opposite.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jun 5, 2023 20:45
@User1865345 Yes, the palaver about detectors seems to be smoke & mirrors. The world & his dog have known for quite a while that they're not especially reliable.
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica
Jun 5, 2023 20:44
@User1865345 That might have been the port talking.