Tavern on the Meta

1:32 AM

I often hear people saying not to format stuff that isn’t code as code, but is there any meta post saying this? (I’ve searched, but I couldn’t find anything)

Ryan M

1:44 AM

I think there's one somewhere on MSO.

But also it's sort of common sense: don't format things that aren't X as X.

Journeyman Geek

2:08 AM

@RandomPerson Funny thing is I wouldn't have responded since I was ill for the last few days ^^

I do tend to keep an eye on meta so flagging is the thing to do, rather than pinging, unless is ABSOLUTELY specifically needs my personal attention or we're on an ongoing conversation

Rob

2:25 AM

@EkadhSingh-ReinstateMonica MSE says the "to format as code" use backtics, tildes, or right arrow. Our ELL.SE site says you can use right arrow for non code purposes: meta.stackexchange.com/a/22189/282094 ell.stackexchange.com/editing-help#advanced-blockquotes - @ryan

Journeyman Geek

@EkadhSingh-ReinstateMonica vaguely (see revision 1) meta.stackexchange.com/questions/137755/…

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/174583/… Oded was a dev and VERY active, so his answer is authoritative

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/172458/… attempts to directly address this

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/338263/… Even the powers that be are guilty sometimes :D

via meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=code+formatting+misuse

Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica

Thank y’all for the links :)

Ryan M

2:41 AM

@Rob Nice finds

Journeyman Geek

SE search is pretty terrible but you learn to get it to give you what you need after a while :D

Rob

We have many sites were you probably couldn't have "code" yet the Editor is the same, and supports the same formatting; such formatting may be used on text that is not code. It's common to distinguish it from other text, especially when quotating with proper attribution - a critical requirement on most all sites, to prevent plagiarism.

Journeyman Geek

@Rob I mean, if its "legitimate" use of inline quotation that won't fit in classic quotation, no one's going to complain

Ryan M

3:32 AM

Well, generally quote formatting is the proper formatting for quotes, rather than code formatting.

Journeyman Geek

@RyanM Which leads to the question - what's the right way to do an 'inline' quote :D

Ryan M

@Rob I believe you misread that: > (right arrow) does not do code formatting; that is talking about how to do code formatting within a quote (which is what the right arrow does)

@JourneymanGeek Quotation marks, usually

Journeyman Geek

:D

yup

Ryan M

I quote lots of stuff on Law, and that's usually what I do.

Journeyman Geek

And italics I guess

Ryan M

3:37 AM

The only time I think it's semi-legit for inline quotation is for stuff like "Click the File menu, then click Save" - since it's setting off text quoted from the UI

I'd still probably prefer bold or italic for my own writing, though.

Rob

4:28 AM

@RyanM This is not the "absolute definitive answer", that comes from having more than a couple of links and an opinion, but here is the example from Stack Overflow and the meta from ELL:

1

Q: What is a preformatted text for?

I cannot understand what those brackets above for. When I click it, "enter preformatted text" comes up. What is it for?

Feel free to link to a meta post on a Stack Exchange site that doesn't use code and prohibits the use of code formatting in posts.

Ryan M

4:47 AM

@Rob I don't believe that exists. I didn't intend to imply otherwise.

Rob

How should we interpret?:

Ryan M

All I said was that > doesn't do code formatting in Markdown.

Rob

3 hours ago, by Ryan M

But also it's sort of common sense: don't format things that aren't X as X.

Ryan M

I suppose that might have come off as more of an absolute rule than I intended it to. I merely meant that as a general rule. As that ELL meta post says re: using code formatting, "this should be treated as the exception rather than the rule."

Rob

OK.

Ryan M

4:51 AM

But yes, I could have been more precise in my phrasing: the ELL meta post put it better than I did, and I agree with it entirely.

Rob

But also, quoting myself, one site's link from a deleted user doesn't set the individual policy for each site:

29 mins ago, by Rob

@RyanM This is not the "absolute definitive answer", that comes from having more than a couple of links and an opinion, but here is the example from Stack Overflow and the meta from ELL:

It will take more time than I have available to research a dozen sites.

DIY has no meta about it, though it is mentioned in their help page. EE.SE says they barely need it (albeit in an old Q&A) but they'll allow it: diy.meta.stackexchange.com/editing-help#code electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/340/142621

Rob

5:38 AM

Searching on DIY for "hascode:true" returns 1774 results, true that not all have blocks that show up as code, more true that few are likely to actually contain any "code" despite the frequent usage of the formatting.

rene

8:16 AM

→ 54 messages moved to Chimney

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

8:34 AM

!!/coffee Jit

SmokeDetector

@ShadowWizardIsVaccinatedV3 brews a cup of Mocha for @Jit

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

@Jit are you Just In Time? ;)

Luuklag

@Tinkeringbell the parrot died?

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

?

Journeyman Geek

@Luuklag Its a spooky parrot

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

8:44 AM

oh no

She turned into.... skull?!

Journeyman Geek

Its a parrot skull

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

Reminds me of Shog's eye

Sign she's sad or something? :(

Journeyman Geek

Naw Halloween

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

ohhh it's @Rob

yesterday, by Rob

Rob. It's always Rob.

:P

Journeyman Geek

9:00 AM

actually, is that a skull or an xray?

rene

an x-ray-ed skull

Rob

11:02 AM

For Christmas we can have pickled parrot, with potatoes and carrot.

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

12:42 PM

@JNat cross site offensive display name, can you please reset and maybe warn so that they won't change again? Thanks!

Rob

1:09 PM

@ShadowWizardIsVaccinatedV3 They claim this is their other account in these erased answers.

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

1:22 PM

@Rob sorry, I can't see deleted posts on that site.

I just report offensive name; if the user has more accounts with valid name and posts, they should not be affected.

(yet)

Rob

Neither can I (or most of the users in The Tavern), nor did they link to their answer, only the question; and it's a "claim", not established,so it needs an IP check.

Arguably, it's a misuse of the puppet.

Rob

1:39 PM

@ShadowWizardIsVaccinatedV3 I'm lucky to have 2K there, HDE is our only other user with more than 10K there.

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

@Rob yeah that's lucky

Rob

Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica

2:37 PM

Is there any user-script that allows you to do a bunch of edits on different posts at the same time so it doesn’t clog up the front page for too long? (I’m asking because I’ve just noticed a couple hundred posts which need editing, but on a small/medium site editing them over a period of time will completely clog up the homepage)

Tinkeringbell

Flooding the front page with edits is usually about the number of old posts edited at once compared to the rate of new posts coming in. Even if you did all of them at the same time, the homepage would still be considered 'flooded'.

Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica

It would be flooded for a much smaller amount of time though.

Tinkeringbell

No?

It would be flooded just as much and just as long as when you edited only say 50 posts...

Because it takes time for the new posts to arrive, and it will be flooded until those posts arrive.

What's the kind of edit you're planning on making anyways... if it's a 'couple hundred' posts, I'm assuming they're all having the same flaw?

Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica

Editing out incorrect code usage because it prevents some people from reading the site

and if I spread the edits out, then any new posts that happen during my editing spree will be buried, but if I do it all at once new posts cannot happen during my editing spree.

Tinkeringbell

2:55 PM

@EkadhSingh-ReinstateMonica Meh. You might want to follow the advice here first, and ask if there really is a wish for a mass cleanup. Make sure to mention you're going to have to make suggested edits, which is what you'll be doing since you don't have enough reputation to do otherwise on Arqade.

Those edits require people to review them, so this is not something you can just do on your own. And I doubt people will be happy if you push a couple of hundred posts into the suggested edit queue at once, so even if there were such a script using it in your circumstances would be a very bad idea.

Since it's about code backticks, it's not something that can be automatically recognized as 'right' or 'wrong'... sometimes SE staff can help with e.g. massive retaggings or updating links, but that's not the case here... so you're out of luck.

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

3:09 PM

@EkadhSingh-ReinstateMonica don't do it. Talk with the site mods, they can escalate it up to CM team which can in turn ask a developer to run a batch script server side to perform non-bumping edit.

Having or not having userscript is not relevant.

Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica

3:29 PM

@Tinkeringbell I wasn’t planning on doing it on arqade, I was planning on doing it on politics (where I do have edit privs). Though, good point about bringing it up on the per-site meta, I’ll do that soon.

@ShadowWizardIsVaccinatedV3 that feels a bit overkill.

Journeyman Geek

@EkadhSingh-ReinstateMonica nope

We were discussing it on SU but I just ended up spacing out over a year or so

Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica

Thank y’all for the help :)

Random Person

5:35 PM

@Glorfindel OK.

@JourneymanGeek oh.. Are you alright now?

@JourneymanGeek OK.

Journeyman Geek

@RandomPerson nothing 12 hours of sleep didn't improve

Random Person

@JourneymanGeek :(

Did you consult a doctor?

Journeyman Geek

Naw, Had my booster Jab a day earlier

the MRNA vaccines tend to knock people out

Random Person

oh.. ok.

So what are the countries in which booster shots are there?

Journeyman Geek

\o/

Random Person

5:40 PM

Israel, US, Singapore. Any other?

Journeyman Geek

No idea

I work in a high risk environment so it was a good idea. Its not mandatory I think

Random Person

@JourneymanGeek oh.. ok.

@JourneymanGeek did you mean "Cheer "Yay, yay.""?

Journeyman Geek

I also work wierd hours (and often my PC is on when I'm asleep) so ... unless I'm talking, its possible I'm not here

No, I meant \o/

Random Person

@JourneymanGeek oh..

@JourneymanGeek I don't know the meaning of the emoticon...

Random Person

6:05 PM

@RandomPerson I have posted the question.. meta.stackexchange.com/q/370933

Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3

8:12 PM

@JourneymanGeek not me ;)

List of emoticons

This is a list of notable and commonly used emoticons, or textual portrayals of a writer's moods or facial expressions in the form of icons. Originally, these icons consisted of ASCII art, and later, Shift JIS art and Unicode art. In recent times, graphical icons, both static and animated, have joined the traditional text-based emoticons; these are commonly known as emoji.Emoticons can generally be divided into three groups: Western (mainly from America and Europe) or horizontal (though not all are in that orientation); Eastern or vertical (mainly from east Asia); and 2channel style (originally...

> \o/ Cheer "Yay, yay."[7]

it's hands up in the air

\o/
/o\

now with legs too :D

rene

8:55 PM

[0]

Journeyman Geek

9:40 PM

I usually use that as thowing my hands up in frustration

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