Tavern on the Meta

spoulson

16:00

Hello

Tim Stone

'Ello

spoulson

Seems I've nerd sniped myself all week long

Can't stop working on this pointless project

Tim Stone

Ah, if it makes you feel better I've been wrapped up in this annoyingly long answer to a SO question, heh.

Popular Demand

@spoulson @spoulson Which?

Wil

... I don't suppose there are any fluent/good French speakers here fora very quick favour?

Popular Demand

16:06

@spoulson @spoulson Ugh, I fear the day when SO sees "What's your favorite nerd snipe?"

Yi Jiang

@Wil @Wil ... there's always Google Translate if you're desperate

Popular Demand

@Wil @Wil If there's nobody else, I can try to dredge up my high school French, but I was pretty bad at it.

Tim Stone

@Wil @Wil Eh, my mind is probably a bit too dull right now to go multilingual, but what was the favour?

spoulson

This time it's figuring out Direct 3D/MFC/C++ for a realtime rendered rotozoomer

Once I got it working at a decent framerate, I had to figure out how to do X, then Y broke, fix that, then try Z, etc. never ends

Wil

Basically, I am driving to France next month and need to take some pet birds (Long story), and trying to send a message - but I can't translate/know whats best on the "Department" drop down - Can't easily use Google Translate... but I will if no one can help! - agriculture.gouv.fr/Contact,1227

spoulson

16:09

It started because I wanted to run a rotozoomer I wrote in asm back in the '90s under DOS. But it won't run on WinXP or newer because of the video mode it wants to use. So it couldn't be that hard to rewrite, could it...?

Wil

I tried ringing UK agencies and got the forms and there shouldn't be a problem, but they said about double checking with French agencies/embassy - they were pretty useless and despite knowing English and what I was saying, they didn't know anything!

Yi Jiang

@Wil @Wil The main SO Tavern has about 25 people, which may give you a better chance of getting help

Popular Demand

@spoulson @spoulson Handle orthogonal directions independently! (I'm sure that's not the right answer here, I don't even know what a rotozoomer is -- though I remember you mentioning it earlier -- but it was the solution to an infuriating homework problem I had last night.)

radp

Wil

@Yi Jiang @YiJiang Keeping my fingers crossed!

Yi Jiang

16:10

@radp @radp lolwut?

Popular Demand

@Yi Jiang @YiJiang I guess you shouldn't get Notes and Lotus Notes confused.

radp

@Yi Jiang @YiJiang thedailywtf.com/Articles/Bikeunsure.aspx

@Yi Jiang @YiJiang I guess that's a non-Notes-generated password prompt with a security warning

Popular Demand

@Wil @Wil From the few I do recognize, I'd say those are territories/provinces/states, which France does call "departments."

Tim Stone

@Wil Département here means the area of France that you're asking in regards to

Departments of France

The departments of France (, ) and many of its former colonies are administrative divisions. The 100 French departments are grouped into 22 metropolitan and four overseas regions, all of which have identical legal status as integral parts of France. The departments are subdivided into 342 arrondissements, which in turn, are divided into cantons. Each canton consists of a small number of communes. In the overseas territories, some of the communes play a role at departmental level. History The first French "departments", in the sense of territory, were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René d'Ar...

Ah, @PopularDemand beat me to it. :P

spoulson

@PopularDemand See this version in Flash: weltenkonstrukteur.de/2008/12/rotozoomer-in-actionscript30

@PopularDemand It's basically texture mapping to a rectangular area

Popular Demand

16:14

@spoulson @spoulson Gotcha.

Wil

Many thanks @Popular/@Tim Stone, Ahh! Ok... That makes sense, I tried copying/pasting the HTML for the drop down to Google Translate and even with the extra HTML, I couldn't work out why it wasn't working/so much French...

spoulson

@PopularDemand I tried it first in GDI/C# but took ~600ms to render a 400x300 area.

radp

looks like bb

spoulson

@PopularDemand With Direct3D/C++ it runs >50fps full screen 1280x768

Wil

I can't see Lille or Calais on the list, I see Paris there so may just send there and cross my fingers.

radp

16:15

I guess I'm going to upload my own version of that

spoulson

@PopularDemand And despite the name, I'm not using 3D acceleration; software rendering direct to video buffer

Popular Demand

@Wil @Wil "Calais is a town in northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. "

@spoulson @spoulson With performance like that, who cares what it's drawing?

"[Lille] is the capital of the Nord-Pas de Calais region and the prefecture of the Nord department."

Wil

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand Brilliant, thanks - I already sent to Paris, but did back and resent there - Hope they don't get annoyed about two messages!... just hope I get (and understand) the response.

I am sure there won't be problems and Calais is really the one I am worried about, but thanks a lot for looking that up!

Popular Demand

@Wil @Wil No problem.

spoulson

@PopularDemand I'm putting together a blog post, so you'll get to try it yourself.

Popular Demand

16:23

@spoulson @spoulson Yipe.

spoulson

Whoa, just noticed the starred post on gamedev SE

Jeff Atwood

0

Q: Cross-site tag sets are live: feedback?

On http://stackexchange.com -- assuming you are logged in via global auth -- we now support cross-site "tag sets". That is, you can set up a stream of tagged questions on a single site, or across multiple sites. Like so: You can also browse other people's tag sets, so feel free to set up tag ...

Popular Demand

@Jeff Atwood @JeffAtwood Saw it yesterday. Like the idea. Haven't tried using it yet.

Jeff Atwood

also @Wil you're here but not on chat.superuser .. tsk tsk :)

Wil

@Jeff Atwood @JeffAtwood LOL... I just replaced superuser with meta.stackoverflow in the address bar! needed a quick answer and thought there would be more people here! :)

@Jeff Atwood @JeffAtwood I'll go back!

Popular Demand

16:26

@Jeff Does this support "*friday*" syntax?

Jeff Atwood

I'm just kidding :)

we are moving most of the sites to one large chat site at chat.stackexchange.com -- so there are more people to talk to...

of course sites will still have their own rooms

rchern

ah yeah, some people were talking about that last night

curious to see how it works, lots of questions about it

Jeff Atwood

@PopularDemand I don't think so, that'd be a request, put it as an answer to the meta q

rchern

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand what does this mean?

Wil

@Jeff Atwood @JeffAtwood Cool... Sounds good... Seems a bit silly having so many different lounges/Tavern/whatever!

Yi Jiang

16:30

@Jeff Atwood: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/68328/cross-site-tag-sets-are-live-feedback

@JeffAtwood Why doesn't the views for these questions have the same options as on se sites, like "hot" and "month"?

Popular Demand

@rchern @rchern See the answer: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/68328/…

(Which I'll update as soon as I find the source for that syntax. I think it was rolled out in a Meta post.)

Stefan Liebenberg

@Jeff, so SE sites won't have their own chat rooms, but instead all will share one? ( with different rooms for each SE .. )

Ivo Flipse

no, they will all be on one site again

Michael Mrozek

@Stefan Liebenberg @StefanLiebenberg You kind of overloaded the word "room" there :)

Yi Jiang

Well, it looks like it could be a very powerful tool, but the UI right now is slightly anaemic

Ivo Flipse

16:35

like first on here (during beta), so no longer on separate sites, but just separate rooms

Stefan Liebenberg

@MichaelMrozek, overloaded... clarify sir... ? :P

Yi Jiang

Shouldn't we pick the tag first, then let the system tell me on which sites those tags are used?

Michael Mrozek

@Stefan Liebenberg @StefanLiebenberg You used "room" to mean "network", and then to mean "room". Don't worry about it, I was just amused

Stefan Liebenberg

@michael, I know.... my linguistics department is down for this week...

Popular Demand

@rchern: :250369 what does this mean?

@rchern Updated.

Yi Jiang

16:37

Wait a second... isn't this an implementation of one of the top feature-request on MSO?

45

Q: Move the remove tag "X" icon inside the tag in interesting/ignored tags

Currently, the list of tags in "ignored tags" and "interesting tags" has a little "remove tag" icon to the right of each tag. However, since this icon is not inside the div containing the tag, it can sometimes get wrapped onto the next line, which causes confusion as to which tag will actually be...

feature-request tags user-interface

oy @JeffAtwood

Popular Demand

@Yi Jiang @YiJiang Looks like it, though the behavior hasn't rolled out to the standard sites yet.

rchern

oh, wildcards.

Jeff Atwood

yeah, I don't agree with that request, so good luck ... you're gonna need it.

3

Popular Demand

@Yi Jiang @YiJiang Hey, you're not rchern.

Don't confuse me.

rchern

o:

Tim Stone

16:39

Now I'm all sorts of confused.

rchern

@JeffAtwood, when is chat.SE coming? 6-8 weeks? (:

Tim Stone

@YiJiang is posing as @rchern and @JeffAtwood doesn't agree with the feature request but it was seemingly implemented anyway albeit in a place no one had anticipated at the time? Madness.

2

@rchern @rchern It'll be done by dinner time...in 6-8 weeks.

Popular Demand

@Tim Stone @TimStone I'm just waiting to find out what the Patented Jeff Atwood Violent Response is in this situation.

Gulshan

@JeffAtwood have youseen my SE 3.0 proposal?

Popular Demand

@Gulshan @Gulshan This is the one I initially thought Yi Jiang was referring to, by the way.

Tim Stone

16:42

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand As long as it doesn't get as violent as @YiJiang with his <table>-attack, I think I'll make it.

Ivo Flipse

2

Q: Can Stack Exchange follow a more generic approach?

I have been a member of Stack Overflow for almost a year and a half. Recently I also registered for Super User, Programmers SE and Web Apps SE. But I am getting a bit confused, maintaining so many different accounts and sites. And more "same-type sites" are coming through the Stack Exchange 2.0 p...

discussion feature-request stackexchange site-proposal

Popular Demand

Note: adding the tag [java] to the StackExchange™ GlobalTag™ MegaBlender™ pretty much floods out any other tags.

rchern

@Tim Stone @TimStone hehehe, I just have lots of questions about how this combined chat will work. A couple of them were answered last night, but that just brought up more questions!

Tim Stone

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand MegaBlender™ makes me think of smoothies, and now I'm hungry.

Ivo Flipse

I like that I would have only one site to keep track off and give some topics more overlap (though the new SE feature with the tags gives you one site to look at!), but I do think there's value in having rep per separate topic @Gulshan

Tim Stone

16:45

@rchern @rchern Oh, I agree entirely. I'm not going to go grab a pitchfork or anything, but I am still struggling with the details.

rchern

(things like moderator privileges, site design, etc)

Jeff Atwood

@Ivo Flipse @IvoFlipse so should I mark this [status-completed] then?

Gulshan

@Ivo Flipse @IvoFlipse I do have proposed counting reps per separate topics.

rchern

0

A: Cross-site tag sets are live: feedback?

I know George Edison already had an app that allows for customizable RSS-feeds, but would it be possible to get an RSS feed of this aggravated question feed?

the aggravated feed? (;

Jeff Atwood

all our feeds are aggravated!

rchern

16:48

@JeffAtwood, what if i want to follow an entire site, not just specific tags?

Popular Demand

@Tim Stone @TimStone You're welcome.

@rchern @rchern Wait for my feature request to get implemented, then follow [*].

Tim Stone

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand Thanks. :P I guess it is about time to make some food anyway, heh.

Jeff Atwood

@rchern I don't think that's the use case for this feature, really

Michael Mrozek

That post is supposed to be about cross-site tagging, but all I saw was:

Yi Jiang

@rchern @rchern Then just go to that site, and look at the active tab

Gulshan

16:53

@PopularDemand You got the links?

Popular Demand

@Michael Mrozek @MichaelMrozek Yeah, they're trying to highlight the sites that are struggling and may not deserve to live.

@Gulshan @Gulshan What links?

The left-side sidebar thing?

Michael Mrozek

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand I suppose being grouped with programmers.SE isn't a good thing

Gulshan

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand image links for left-hand bars.. which I thought of about the site.

Popular Demand

@Gulshan @Gulshan Yeah, I glanced at them. They're basically OSX's dock or Windows 95+'s taskbar, right?

Gulshan

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand yap

@PopularDemand I thing I want to know. What is the most misunderstood point/section of my SE 3.0 proposal?

Aiden Bell

17:02

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/23009/…

Aww no area51 onebox?

Ivo Flipse

just too bad that I have to fill in tags for a dozen sites, while I'm sure someone could do a pretty good job of recommending me questions @JeffAtwood

Popular Demand

@Gulshan @Gulshan Not sure... maybe the super tags? You're kind of vague about those, though it seems to be at least partially intentional.

@Aiden Bell @AidenBell Area 51 has no API.

Aiden Bell

@PopularDemand - lame

Well, I started a proposal .... check it out

Ivo Flipse

@Gulshan where do you mention the separate rep for each super-tag?

rchern

@JeffAtwood oh i see. would be nice to be able to. aggregating questions from the sites and as a mod on a smaller site, following all tags seems proper i guess

Popular Demand

17:03

@Ivo Flipse @IvoFlipse meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/68214/…

@Aiden Bell @AidenBell Hm, "Large Organizations" is pretty broad.

Gulshan

@Ivo Flipse @IvoFlipse Any user profile can be queried against a "Super tag" to get a tag-specific profile. Visitors to "Super tag" subsites will be shown tag-specific user statistics.

May be it is not clear enough

Aiden Bell

@PopularDemand - Broad yes, but ultimately the same sorts of questions

Gulshan

As I didn't use the word reputation..

Gonna edit to make it clear..

Ivo Flipse

ah right I see it @PopularDemand, well what I do like about having one site is that I think that if you gain some privileges (like editing and adding tags), this shouldn't be withdrawn when I go to another site. The fact that you get more than 10k rep for instance, means you have a very clear understanding of how the site works and doesn't need to be built up. I don't feel that you need any knowledge of the community to be able to use these tools

Aiden Bell

@PopularDemand a Google or IBM SO would be too fragmented; Organisations is a good catch granularity I think

Popular Demand

17:06

@Ivo Flipse @IvoFlipse Yeah, the root of the problem is that rep is one number for two things: topic knowledge and SE network knowledge.

Ivo Flipse

well luckily SE knows enough about you to see how much SE network knowledge I have @PopularDemand, so they shouldn't have to test me yet again ;-)

also what I do like would be one account for every site, without the need of having to create one in the first place. The whole concept of linking accounts is just rubbish, I'm the same person on the same site, log me in already!

Popular Demand

@Ivo Flipse @IvoFlipse I never really understood the difference between one account for every site and linked accounts with the same OpenID.

Wow, angry comments much?

4

Q: What is MVC (Model View Controller)?

I've heard the term MVC (Model View Controller) tossed about with a ton of Buzz lately, but what really is it?

mvc design-patterns glossary

Aiden Bell

Lately!?!? We're on MVVCVVVCMVCMMMVVVCCCMVCVVC by now!

Gulshan

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand reputations with hassle of going to all the sites separately.

Ivo Flipse

somebody should delete those comments

Gulshan

17:12

@IvoFlipse Edited. Now the point looks like- "Any user profile/reputation can be queried against a "Super tag" to get a tag-specific profile/reputation. Visitors to "Super tag" subsites will be shown tag-specific user reputation. For some privileges like chat and retagging the overall reputation will be used while for some other like closing a question will require tag-specific reputation."

Ivo Flipse

anyway @Gulshan I will have another look at your question later and try to give a proper response

Gulshan

ok

Yi Jiang

Hmmm... my conversation with @AidenBell seems less productive then before

in The SO Tavern (General) on Stack Overflow Chat, 1 min ago, by Yi Jiang

 ------------- / REST IN \ / PEACE \ / \ | AidenBell | | killed by a | |giant <table> tag| | * * * | /\\_/(\/(/\)\//\//|

Popular Demand

17:36

What is the secret code in the SE footer? Now that we have more graduated sites, the pattern is orange / orange / orange / red / light blue / gray / forest / cobalt / black / burnt sienna / sky blue / taupe / yellow.

Tim Stone

Good ol' burnt sienna

Aiden Bell

@TimStone area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/23009/…

Tim Stone

@AidenBell Nice, I'll take another look at that in a bit and see if I want to commit.

Gulshan

Which one will be more common for the stack exchange sites? separate domains or just a SE sub-domain?

Considering the case of webApps?

I don't know whether this discussion is already over by now. This is my first time in chat and 2nd day in meta.

Popular Demand

17:53

@Gulshan @Gulshan The discussion is over. I could link you to a small book worth of reading material, but the summary is basically this blog post.

0

Q: Proposal: Free day in the visit log to account for the Oct 23rd downtime

This is an intentional ripoff of Proposal: Free day in the visit log to account for the Oct 9th downtime, which is [status-planned] as of this writing. If there is downtime on Oct 23, 2010 due to datacenter migration, I propose giving every user who visits on Oct 22nd, 2010 a free entry in t...

feature-request enthusiast-badge consecutive-days fanatic-badge

Hopefully we can nip some potential angst in the bud.

radp

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand Honestly, this downtime was much shorter

Popular Demand

@radp @radp What downtime?

radp

Today's?

Tim Stone

The downtime was a lie.

But what @PopularDemand is talking about is very different than what you're talking about, @radp

radp

._.

Tim Stone

17:58

status-potential-migration-downtime

versus

status-rogue-regular-expression-downtime

@radp @radp Priorities. :D

Popular Demand

@radp @radp I have to ask... what's [bob-came-in-pieces]?

Tim Stone

I had the same question, but restrained myself.

radp

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand It's, huh, Bob Came in Pieces

Popular Demand

@radp @radp I was kind of hoping for a description rather than a link, as I am at work. I'll just make a note to look it up later, though.

radp

okay, then.

Tim Stone

18:02

@radp @radp Oh, that looks kind of cool.

radp

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand It's some sort of physics puzzle

You assemble your ship with pieces you collect along

booster and connecting pieces

and change design to solve each task

for example some times you'll need to have a stick on your ship right

but that'll make piloting your ship a pain

so you need careful weight and booster balance and whatnot.

Jin

is it a bad idea that I want to try Minecraft at some point? Is it as life draining as WoW?

radp

@Jin @Jin nah, it's got some inbuilt sanity measures -- the game will corrupt your save files from time to time :D

5

Popular Demand

@radp @radp Fair enough.

Jin

@radp @radp i'm not sure if that's a comforting feature...

radp

18:07

@Jin @Jin it's alpha quality software. Shit will happen.

It's however stable enough for normal uses.

anyway, it's hard to recommend now that a pretty big, game changing update is coming for it.

The game wasn't exactly frustration-free before.

rchern

@Jin, designing SE sites doesn't take up all your time?

quick people! we need more proposals!

Mark C

Hi y'all

radp

@rchern

yesterday, by radp

A Q&A site for everybody who has any question mark

Popular Demand

@rchern @rchern It's research.

rchern

(;

Popular Demand

18:12

@rchern @rchern C'mon, the Physics proposal is nearly in beta!

Jin

@rchern ha it's taking all my time now...

it's like a nonstop exercise of CSS Zen Garden with Stackoverflow's HTML...

rchern

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand i'm committed to 3 already. of course, they're all stuck in committment

Mark C

Physics has been "nearly in beta" for a while. It needs a kick.

Tim Stone

@rchern Oh, I meant to ask, did I totally muck up things with my changes as far as reintegration goes?

Mark C

What is your view on the X-to-remove tags topic?

rchern

18:14

the 3 i'm in are at 35%, 30%, and 25% committment

Tim Stone

@Jin @Jin with Stackoverflow's HTML... You poor, poor designer. :(

radp

I have 0 open commitments because I'm not done yet with Gaming until we get a domain name at least.

That'll take, er, some time.

Jin

@Tim Stone @TimStone I told the core team to change the HTML quite a bit in the past few months, but still needs a lot of improvement.

Mark C

@Radp what are the top choices, if any?

rchern

@TimStone, haven't tried yet

0

Q: How to handle pull requests with Git Extensions?

I have a public repository on github that I'm having trouble handling pull requests with inside GitExtensions. I've done 3 so far, and I don't think any of them have worked properly or worked where I want them to. On the 19th, I tried to handle a pull request that Yi Jiang created. In GitExte...

git gitextensions git-extensions

Popular Demand

18:16

Diago's back.

rchern

i'm going to try it tonight, but i'd rather do it at home where i can give it 100% attention rather than at work

Tim Stone

@PopularDemand Hmm, I could get on board with physics...I almost did a double-major. Though I'm not sure my brain can handle that much thinking right now.

Mark C

@TimS Go look at the question base, it's nothing scary

rchern

why does jeff always tweet site graduations a day after they've graduated lol

Mark C

Now, HEP, that has some scary questions.

Tim Stone

18:17

@rchern @rchern Makes sense. I think I got pinged about it (much) earlier, which is why I asked.

Popular Demand

@Tim Stone @TimStone Full disclosure, I don't know nearly enough about physics to feel comfortable committing to that site. I doubt they're looking for people who could at most explain first-year college material.

Tim Stone

@Jin: :250543 I told the core team to change the HTML quite a bit in the past few months, but still needs a lot of improvement.

@Jin @YiJiang has been championing for you on that point, he keeps threatening to bash people with SO's unnecessary <table> tags.

Mark C

Based on what we have so far, it's more like an undergrad and questions-from-popular-science site.

Michael Mrozek

I made that mistake when I committed to TeX -- turns out I don't know much about TeX

Mark C

@TimS Wasn't there a question about misaligned privileges and percent numbers that was a result of that?

Jin

18:19

@Tim Stone @TimStone yeah... tables make me cry.

Popular Demand

@Michael Mrozek

Sep 6 at 20:17, by Popular Demand

If I have learned one thing from the SE process, it's that I am not an expert in anything.

Jin

@PopularDemand sounds like you're an expert in self-discovery...

Popular Demand

@Jin @Jin Please. Do you have any idea how much I don't know about myself?

radp

@Michael Mrozek @MichaelMrozek yep, same with Maths

Tim Stone

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand Yeah, I'm a little worried that all of that physics information has jumped out of my head by now, heh. I was thinking about going back to school for it at some point, so maybe then I'll feel semi-capable. :P

Popular Demand

18:21

The purpose of my life... where I'll live when I'm all grown up... my birthday... my eye color....

radp

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand yes -- it's exactly π

Tim Stone

@Mark C @MarkC That was actually because they didn't use tables and IE7 is stupid

@Jin @Jin Especially the single-column ones :(

Hahahah

Popular Demand

@Jin @Jin Which tables? Some of what SO displays could legitimately be described as tabular data.

radp

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand like the recent badge list or the comment areas?

Mark C

@TimS Yeah, I was thinking mainly it was IE's fault for not conforming to spec. (Aside, a programmer friend told me Microsoft didn't even stick to their own .DOC or XML specs.)

Jin

18:23

sure for tabular data table is fine, and should be used. but there are cases where divs should be used. e.g. the question post sections.

Popular Demand

Aye.

Tim Stone

The compiler functions responsible for suppressing PHP exceptions via the @ operator are called zend_do_begin_silence and zend_do_end_silence

"It's quiet time now, PHP"

Popular Demand

Hey, someone actually cleaned up the comments I mentioned earlier! Thanks, mysterious stranger!

radp

function please_do_not_warn_me_I_know_what_I_am_doing(){ # no you don't

Mark C

I have a question that might seem like a grenade, can I ask it here while I consider posting it on Meta?

Popular Demand

18:26

Mmm, cold coffee.

Tim Stone

@radp @radp Heheh :P

Mark C

Well, since no one's said anything yet, here goes:

The Vi & Vim site proposal was closed for reasons described there.

145 followers, 240 committed.

The Emacs proposal only has 67 followers (not even to commitment stage yet) but is still alive, it seems.

Now, I am not trying to stir up strife, but I want to ask if you think this is reasonable (I don't know enough yet to have an opinion).

Or, rather, whether it would be useful to have a Vi(m)/Emacs site.

I guess it comes down to whether or not it would be easy to get answers on SuperUser, and there are 413 questions now with the "Vim" tag.

Robert Cartaino

@Mark C @MarkC If the on-topic questions are covered by an existing site (mostly programmers.SE and Stack Overflow for the programming-related topics), they will be deleted. Any site along those lines that are still there just means I have not gotten around to it, yet.

My first priority is to stay on top of new proposals and proposals as they pass into commitment. The rest will be evaluated in time.

Mark C

Okay, I was suspecting as much. Thanks, Robert.

Robert Cartaino

If anyone sees a proposals that is a 100%-dupe of an existing site, simply vote to close as a duplicate. Failing that, simply flag it for moderator attention.

Mark C

18:37

All right.

Do you think you should require a little more work to submit a proposal? It would cut down the number of "instant oatmeal" proposals to sift through.

rchern

i'm waiting for the music proposals to get dealt with

Popular Demand

@rchern @rchern "dealt with"?

Mark C

@Robert sorry, I didn't tag you before, I thought you were still here. Do you coordinators think it would be a good idea to make the proposal creation a little more involved?

@Popular Yes, "dealt with" in the sense of "sorted out".

Tim Stone

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand They'll be sleeping with the fishes by dawn tomorrow.

Mark C

There are Guitars, Musical Instruments, Instrument Builders, Guitar Luthiers, Music Theory, Music Practice & Composition, and so on

Popular Demand

18:53

@Tim Stone @TimStone Proposals can sleep? Do they do so furiously? Are they also green and colorless?

Mark C

Oh yeah, and Classical Guitar and Music Practice & Performance (I think)

Popular Demand

I'm learning so much!

Mark C

@Pop I do not understand...

rchern

@PopularDemand, there were some talks on Meta of merging the proposals like @MarkC mentioned, but the talks seemed to have stalled for more pressing matters i guess

Tim Stone

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand I'd argue stranger things have happened within the depths of the Stack Exchange network, so...yes to all.

Robert Cartaino

18:56

@Mark C @MarkC I don't think we have to, necessarily, make the proposal process more involved. What needs work is the inner-proposal communication... some sort of meta discussion among groups of proposals to best decide how these proposed "topics" can form good end-user sites.

Popular Demand

@Tim Stone @TimStone Ref

Mark C

@RobertC Yes, a meta discussion is a good idea, but I mean it like what happens when you write a question---if you have to put just enough effort into it to think about it clearly and thoroughly, you may find out the answer before you post.

Robert Cartaino

@rchern @rchern It didn't stall. There was no conclusive consensus arrived at by the music participants. We even had a chat session. So we either have to provide an on-going forum to work these things out... or make an executive decision. There's no pressing, imminent music proposal ready to burst onto the scenes to force the decision right now.

Tim Stone

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand Ah ha, clearly that reference was over my head. Interesting..

Robert Cartaino

@Mark C @MarkC I don't quite understand what you are asking.

rchern

19:02

@RobertCartaino, oh.

Mark C

I mean some way to help proposal authors spend a little more time to think about (and look at similar topics) proposals. When something is very easy to do, like commenting, it makes the average quality (proposal) lower than it would be otherwise.

@Robert I also had a question about Area51: I don't seem to be able to un-follow closed proposals. Is there a way to do this?

Robert Cartaino

@rchern @rchern I'm taking it a bit slow, merging some more "obvious" candidates to see how it goes. E.g. Parenting proposals... no doubt they should be ONE proposal. Judiaism... same thing.

@Mark C @MarkC Hmm... I'm not aware of an issue with that. I'll have to check meta.

rchern

hmmm there's one for judaism?

oh, it is still in definition

Mark C

Well, I was considering whether to post a question about it but since you're here I might as well ask.

Robert Cartaino

@rchern @rchern Yes, I am considering having them all support this one (the one that has the best community from SE 1.0:

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/22435/…

Popular Demand

19:09

@Robert Cartaino @RobertCartaino I can't wait for the day when someone suggests merging "Biblical *," "Judaism" and "Buddhism" into one site. Popcorn consumption in the region of me will skyrocket.

2

Aiden Bell

We can call it "topics on human insecurity and the pathological pursuit of God"

rchern

@RobertCartaino, yeah, that's the one i meant by saying it was still in definition. seems backwards dealing with things still in definition rather than commitment but i guess maybe more clear cut

Robert Cartaino

Yes, I picked them because it was really clear cut (like parents); virtually no decision to be made. More to get experience with the ins-and-outs and possible pitfalls of merging proposals.

Popular Demand

19:32

How will chat permissions work with the new site? Admission to room A requires 20 rep on site A? What about non-site-specific rooms? Will there be any? Is it too early for these questions?

rchern

hehe that's the sort of stuff we were talking to @MarcGravell about last night

Roger Pate

@Robert Cartaino: :250604 I don't think we have to, necessarily, make the proposal process more involved. What needs work is the inner-proposal communication... some sort of meta discussion among groups of proposals to

@RobertCartaino I've long wondered why there isn't a meta.area51

Popular Demand

@Roger Pate @RogerPate There is. It's called Meta Stack Overflow.

Aiden Bell

I hate marketing

Michael Mrozek

@Aiden Bell @AidenBell Many thanks for pasting it in here then

Popular Demand

19:40

@Aiden Bell @AidenBell What makes that specific ad so special?

Roger Pate

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand then it doesn't seem to be working for area51 participants

Popular Demand

@Roger Pate

4

Q: Why doesn't Area 51 have its own Meta?

According to the blog, per-site Metas have opened up for all sites except for the special case of SO/MSO. (Discussion about the special case is discussed further here.) Area 51 is not mentioned, though. I understand that it's not exactly an SE site, but doesn't it deserve a place for meta-disc...

support area51 per-site-meta

Tell Jeff.

Roger Pate

tbh, I lost interest in a51 a long time ago, *shrug*

Mark C

@Pop @Rog Have you noticed that you can't un-follow a closed proposal?

Roger Pate

no, haven't noticed; haven't been participating in a51

Popular Demand

19:50

Hmm. What is the default character encoding used by Java? Is there a standard one?

Mark C

Robert said he was going to look on Meta (I can't find anything about it yet), but I did find this:

7

Q: Can't unfollow a proposal in beta

I'd like to unfollow web applications, but I can't (I could when it was in commitment). I started following it in the hopes of being invited to the private beta, but that didn't happen.

support status-completed area51 following-proposal

Which is answered as "Fixed" by Emmett.

Tim Stone

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand I guess it depends on the context. The JVM's character encoding is system-dependent, but Strings and the like are all represented as UTF-8 by default, I think.

Popular Demand

@Tim Stone @TimStone Curious. Thanks.

Mark C

Okay, I found this reply by Robert (where he updates with a fix that prevents you from following or committing to a closed proposal:

Marc Gravell

Non-site-specific rooms: yes

Mark C

19:54

3

A: Area 51 allows users to commit to a closed proposal

This is the intended behavior. Closing a proposal is analogous to closing a question. You can still vote on it and it can be voted to re-open. Eventually, closed proposals will be deleted. Update We changed our mind on this. Following / Committing are different than normal voting, so you won't...

Marc Gravell

rep: your highest

Moderator access to private rooms: to non-site-specific, or your sites; otherwise you need explicit access granted

that sound reasonable?

Mark C

(Sorry if this is noise) My guess is that they disabled changing the "followed" status, which would have the effect of preventing you from un-following as well.

Should I write a question about it on Meta and link to those changes?

Roger Pate

I don't think it's noise here, but am surprised to not see an area51 chat room

Popular Demand

@Marc Gravell @MarcGravell Yeah, I think so.

Roger Pate

@PopularDemand what new site? did I miss an announcement?

Marc Gravell

19:58

@Roger - almost certainly will be on chat.SE

Roger Pate

instead of chat.specific-site? or in addition to (for sites that don't have their own chat yet?)

Marc Gravell

we hope to have some of chat.SE open next week. Might have been sooner if the servers hadn't gone mad

radp

secret.chat.stackexchange.com doesn't give me access, please fix that.

Marc Gravell

try chat.secret.stackexchange.com

and no, that isn't a joke

Aiden Bell

"Very occasionally we invite a few users to preview systems to help us validate them; please don't be offended if you haven't been invited."

Pfffttt

Marc Gravell

20:00

the password is "I fell for it"

2

Aiden Bell

@MarcGravell - You got humor-based logging up this time?

radp

tail -F ftw!

Marc Gravell

no; alas I have real work to do... no time for such nicities

Popular Demand

@Aiden Bell @AidenBell That'd be great! "Our automated systems have determined that your password attempt is pretty dang funny. Come on in."

radp

oh well, it's not like I have particular interest in it anyway. It's way more fun to get the password out of @rchern anyway.

rchern

20:02

gah

bad @radp, bad!

Aiden Bell

[21:02 - User "Aiden Bell"] Attempt: *awwwwcomeon!* Access Denied

Marc Gravell

you should see what she says about you in our private chat.SE room

Popular Demand

Wow, I thought this would be an easy SO question, but it's actually turning out to be an adventure.

rchern

hey! you virtual pinky swore you wouldn't say anything about that @MarcGravell!!

Marc Gravell

to be fair, @rchern doesn't know the password; we just white-listed her instead.

Tim Stone

20:03

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand "We feel sorry for the amount of shame you have brought on yourself with your ridiculous guesses. Here, have a cookie and a free pass!"

radp

@Marc Gravell @MarcGravell can't be creepier than this.

Tim Stone

@rchern @rchern We have screenshot proof!

0

A: Why don't PHP attributes allow functions?

The compiler code suggests that this is by design, though I don't know what the official reasoning behind that is. I'm also not sure how much effort it would take to reliably implement this functionality, but there are definitely some limitations in the way that things are currently done. Though...

DONE.

Roger Pate

@Popular Demand @PopularDemand link?

Tim Stone

Damn my curiosity and its forcing me to waste time on stuff that doesn't really impact me.

rchern

Tim Stone

20:06

@rchern @rchern That was clearly Photoshopped with the freehand letter brush.

Aiden Bell

@MichaelMrozek is suspiciously quiet .... [ actually, i'm not playing this game again lol ]

rchern

yeah, go hound @MichaelMrozek for the password!

Aiden Bell

@rchern - Sounds like too much protest to me, a ploy perhaps

A ruse

Tim Stone

The password is obviously /login anyway.

rchern

> Very occasionally we invite a few users to preview systems to help us validate them; please don't be offended if you haven't been invited.

hehe i like that line

Aiden Bell

20:08

I'm not offended. Just vengeful

2

Tim Stone

Ah, there's the problem. They won't let us in because we've been modifying their systems instead of validating them. :P

Aiden Bell

@TimStone - Yea, why wouldn't they want to let you guys in to ensure your userscripts work?

radp

@Aiden Bell @AidenBell because I really don't know what they're testing to begin with

I mean, this is the tenth or eleventh chat deploy they make?

Popular Demand

@Roger Pate: :250691 link?

@RogerPate Sorry, got sidetracked.

1

Q: How to parse word-created special chars in java

I am trying to parse some word documents in java. Some of the values are things like a date range and instead of showing up like Startdate - endDate I am getting some funky characters like so StartDate ΓÇô EndDate This is where word puts in a special character hypen. Can you search for these c...