Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 17:21): Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 17:21):From: Gottfried Barrow <igbi@gmx.com>
Hello,
For my use of technology, there's only one product, programming
language, etc. which/I have to /stay connected to be able to get enough
information, and that's this product, Isabelle/HOL. I make vows to not
post here, but then, how many Windows users are here? If the next
Windows version has a big problem, should I not send in an email, to
stick with my vow? Then I've stuck with an old version, or have to
suffer through 9 months to a year of a "bug". So, when I end up
compromising, things like this end up getting posted.
I'm not commenting here to get any response. I actually like the absence
of chatter here. I don't care to see traffic on the type of things I say
sometimes.
Some time ago, someone suggested the use of Stackoverflow for Isabelle,
and now there's a tag for Isabelle. It gets promoted by its link on the
Isabelle web page, and it gets some support by some members of the Set
of Big Guns. If there's now a Stackoverflow tag, maybe there should be a
Isabelle reddit (though maybe not).
First, I give an example of a Reddit site that appears to balance all
the needs and problems that come with a discussion/question/answer forum
for a technical/professional/academic/research product centered around
formal knowledge.
https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/new/
From here, being a True Analyst of Life and Society, I go through
problems and advantages of the different forum formats. At the end, I'll
say something like, "Given the problems and advantages I've pointed out,
it might be that the best compromise is a reddit, as shown by the Rust
reddit site."
--NEEDS: /for a different format than this mailing list/
In my opinion, there are three main advantages to the formats of
Stackoverflow and reddit.com:
(1) One web page that contains an question or remark, along with all
answers and discussions, and the complete discussion that follows.
(2) Decent verbatim formatting.
(3) The result of (1) and (2), an involved question that no one has
time to answer, has a better chance of eventually getting answered.
I unsubscribe here at times, and then view the mailing list posts on the
Web. However, this time, I subscribed back because the Web site doesn't
display some of the graphical characters correctly.
Even subscribing, there's not a complete, good solution for submitting
source to be viewed by others. A little HTML formatting can go a long
way towards making things readable.
I can either insert source in the email body, with no guarantees to what
others will see, or I can attach a THY.
At Stackoverflow, I don't have to attach anything, and it gives me basic
formatting. If it's a big, long THY, I can put it in, and it'll truncate
the view and provide a scroll bar. (I know reddit has code formatting,
but I don't know what else).
*
--PROBLEM: */Stackoverflow suppresses involved discussion/
I ultimately don't care whether there's ever an Isabelle reddit, because
I'm not in charge, but I think the Stackoverflow format suppresses
discussion too much.
Because mathematics and logic in Isabelle/HOL gets complex, and because
novices and experts have to co-exist, lengthy discussion needs to be an
acceptable, and technology-enabled, part of the Isabelle etiquette.
--PROBLEM: /Stackoverflow empasizes voting too much/
As to crowd sites that actually provide good information, and voting, I
have a very schizophrenic psychology about that, and I'll suppress most
all of my opinions on that.
In the context of Isabelle, voting to establish credibility, and voting
to establish the value of a question or answer, how is that applicable here?
I'll guess that 99% of those subscribed to this mailing list have a PhD,
where I have one of the minimum qualifications needed to possibly
succeed with Isabelle/HOL, a B.S. in math.
When Larry Paulson had 1 point on Stackoverflow, as opposed to his
current giganormous 181 points, what bearing did that and does that have
on anything?
*--PROBLEM: */democracies and voting aren't the magic wand/
This is already becoming too long, so I'll turn my opinion here into a
complement.
One thing I respect about this mailing list is that those in charge rule
with a light hand. Compare that to a certain mailing list on
foundational mathematics. It it tells me that I have to subscribe, and
then the moderator will reply back if accepted. No thanks. I already
know I'm unacceptable, and thank you for saving me time from writing
emails like this one. To be fair, some topics may require a heavy hand,
from experience.
The quality of a democracy is dependent on the quality of voters, and
people voting on what they don't understand is ridiculous.
Additionally, if the crowd self-regulates, like here, except for me
occasionally, there's no need for voting. In fact, for a forum to
discuss Isabelle, I say you don't want a democracy.
I say, here, you want about 3 leaders in charge, along with some core
group of professional who also provide some leadership. You then want
that group to monitor the place with a light hand, giving people
freedom, until it's obvious that a person has abused the freedom given,
at which time a heavier hand is applied.
If that's what's needed here, then it seems to me that's more of what
you need other places. It appears to me, just by reading the Rust reddit
rules in the sidebar, what I described about here is sort of how the
Rust professionals work it there.
--PROBLEM: dilution of knowledge over too many sites
I decided that's not a problem for adding a Isabelle reddit. I think
it's a fact, the vast majority of people who subscribe to this mailing
list would be more likely to be willing to participate in an Isabelle
reddit, than participate on Stackoverflow. I'll give some opinions about
why below.
--PROBLEM: having to sign up for accounts, and getting notified of new
post
People may not want to create an account for a particular web site.
Companies try to force us to do that. I don't like it, but reddit.com
may not be too bad. I don't have an account.
Everyone has email, so everyone can get mailing list emails. I subscribe
to tags and users by RSS for Stackoverflow, but I don't see the reddit
provides RSS, and some people aren't set up with a RSS reader anyway.
--EXIT
Well, initially, I had an outline in my mind about comparing problems
and disadvantages about different types of forums, but at the point I
start needing to make sure I implement ancient Greek principles of
rhetoric, to get my point through, I know an email is becoming more than
what it should be.
One last point is that initially, I couldn't make any sense of the
Stackoverflow way of organizing question. Primarily, it's just a
sequential list of questions, displayed by time, though it can be
filtered by tags.
I've decided that's the best way to do things, because there's no good
way to organize anything when questions keep streaming in, and where if
a question doesn't get attention fairly fast, it most likely won't get
attention. There are current questions, the search box to look for
what's in the past, and pages for particular people. There's just too
much knowledge to try and cleanly organize it all.
That point is related to what I care about in all of this. If I ask an
involved question here, is it going to get answered? Probably not, at
least, not very fast.
If it doesn't get answered heere very fast, what's the result? It gets
buried, because emails keep coming in, and the newest emails are what
get the attention.
If I spend 4 hours working up a question on reddit, then it can just set
there. It will get forgotten, but it's not the same thing as getting
buried in time here. All I have to do to try and resurrect it is provide
the link to someone.
If a professional has 5 minutes to throw out a quick paragraph, does
Stackoverflow facilitate that very good? No. It emphasizes the giving of
good, well thought out answers.
--EXIT 2
That reminded me of my outline. Does an expert want to submit what they
say to a novice, a novice who has absolutely no ability to judge the
technical value of what the expert says? No, of course not.
I tell you how it works sometimes, when it comes to voting. A person
doesn't have the ability to determine whether someone has given them
good information or bad information. They only know that they feel bad,
about something. Well, that's so wrong, so they click an icon to show
their displeasure.
In that part of the outline, I would have also made comparisons about
problems with expert sites on stackexchange.com. Here, novices have to
mix with experts, so there has to be a greater level of tolerance by
novices for experts, and experts for novices. It seems to me, I see that
kind of philosophy in the rules of the Rust reddit.
--Regards,
GB
Email Gateway (Aug 19 2022 at 17:22):From: Makarius <makarius@sketis.net>
I usually treat the history of pending threads on this mailing list with
special care: anything that looks like I should comment on, but is not
immediately clear, is marked as important in my mail folder.
At the end of a month, I look through all pending messages of 1 month,
sometimes of 2 or 3 months.
Before a release I look through all pending messages back to the last
release.
Makarius
Last updated: Apr 20 2024 at 08:16 UTC