META-DISCUSSION: the value of experiments vs. advance discussion

[confocaloid]

I definitely disagree with the idea of "new experimental round".
I already objected to this idea of making "experimental batches" the previous time; my objections were essentially ignored; now it is apparent that that "experimental round" was a bad idea, creating new problems without resolving any old problems.

Even though it may be unnecessary to specify all the details in advance, every step of such controversial large-scale changes should be preceded by an explanation of what will be done in this step, written by whoever is planning to do the edits. Otherwise it's just more and more rounds of undiscussed and unexplained campaigns.

I think whoever is going to do the edits should explain what they are going to do, and then let other people review the suggestion for some time before trying to implement it, not after. Editing campaigns are counterproductive, regardless whether you call them 'campaigns' or 'experimental edits' or what have you.

[...] If so, then how about a new experimental round of adjusting the "A" still lifes according to the new plan, so everybody can see what it would look like? [...]

Obviously I will put in relevant links and correct it. Do not forget that this is not as-is, but a rough guide. I will refine it if the answer is yes.

Heh, as you've discovered, the answer might not be "yes" until there's a final form to look at and say "yes" to.
[...]

[confocaloid]

[...] They would like symmetry information in infoboxes because, well, why not? That information can be useful to have, and having it on the wiki in a standardized way seems like a step forward. The exact implementation and details of how and that information is entered on pages, how it is displayed, exactly which templates it will be a part of, and so on -- those are good questions to ask and think about (and if someone does have an answer, of course please provide it). But in my mind those can be iterated upon and figured out alongside the "being bold".

IMO, in this case some more "upfront thinking" and discussion (of possible ways to present this information) would be helpful in this case.

Otherwise, if people repeatedly attempt to try different possibilities in turn, without making sure that it's (at least) a self-consistent implementable idea (as opposed to vague thinking), that kind of contradicts the target of having the information on the wiki in a standardized way.

[confocaloid]

Meta-discussion by confocaloid will be moved to a separate thread. It's an important topic, but it's meta-discussion -- it's not actually relevant to the discussion of next steps to further improve muzik's kinetic-symmetry project.

I disagree. It's not meta-discussion, any more than a number of other replies (including your and Nathaniel's posts) are.

For example my previous post was a reply to Nathaniel's post. I think it is counterproductive to scatter the discussion across the forums.

I think the posts should be kept where they are, at least until the discussion settles a bit.

[dvgrn]

I definitely disagree with the idea of "new experimental round".
I already objected to this idea of making "experimental batches" the previous time.

@confocaloid, stop going on about how your objections are getting "ignored". It's no good having unpleasant meta-discussion nonsense like this continually interrupting the discussion about the actual topic. I've moved your post and this response to it to a new thread, to stop it from derailing the actual discussion.

Your objections were not in any way ignored -- they were addressed, in particular by Nathaniel's response. The questions that you want answers to can be iterated upon and figured out alongside the "being bold".

In this case, a moderator (me) has suggested continuing to work on this issue by trying another experiment. You're entitled to your own opinion about whether that's a good idea, of course! But I'm pretty clear by this point that in this instance, your "continue to wait" option is likely in practice to end up meaning waiting around forever with the LifeWiki in a broken state, because nobody dares to touch it -- whereas trying experiments like these will eventually result in things getting improved! That's exactly how the LifeWiki is supposed to work, and that's the way it's working in this case so far -- it's just that the process isn't complete yet.

Your often-repeated super-confident insistence on waiting for more discussion, can sometimes have seriously unfortunate effects. The whole editing process grinds to a halt, and no further progress can be made, and a lot of people get frustrated by that -- because we're all waiting around indefinitely for further discussion that never happens. (Yes, I said "a lot of people" very deliberately. As an active moderator, I have to deal with the complaints. PM me if you want to know more.)

The requirement that Nathaniel mentioned was that people in these discussions need to be receptive to feedback. Haycat2009 is clearly doing this, by continuing to ask questions and try to move this process forward. I've done this, by reviewing all of the good ideas you've posted and incorporating most of them into my suggestions for the next round of experiments.

@confocaloid, it's now your turn to take some feedback yourself, by abandoning this lost-cause fight with a moderator (that's me again) and instead figuring out how to be more flexible about how this editing project is going to happen.

...now it is apparent that that "experimental round" was a bad idea, creating new problems without resolving any old problems.

This is not apparent to anybody except for you, as far as I'm aware. If other people would like to object to this next experiment that I suggested, they should please speak up. This thread would be a good place.

Even though it is unnecessary to specify all the details in advance, every step of such controversial large-scale changes should be preceded by an explanation of what will be done in this step, written by whoever is planning to do the edits. Otherwise it's just more and more rounds of undiscussed and unexplained campaigns.

That is exactly what I just asked Haycat2009 to do --

So ... to get this editing work back on track, the next step would be for you to say exactly what you want to do next, and how it's different from what you did with the "A" and "B" still lifes.

-- in the post that you objected to and have since reported, in which I agreed to almost everything you said.

I think whoever is going to do the edits should explain what they are going to do, and then let other people review the suggestion for some time before trying to implement it, not after. Editing campaigns are counterproductive, regardless whether you call them 'campaigns' or 'experimental edits' or what have you.

Again, you're welcome to your opinion, but we're not always going to do things the way you would like.

In this case, we already have some articles -- the "A" still lifes -- that aren't in quite the right state yet. It won't do any harm at all to try the experiment of putting them in a better state. Then people can see exactly what the new state looks like.

Examples are a lot easier for many people to review and talk about, compared to wall-of-text descriptions about all the details of what someone wants to change.

We've already seen a month or two of near-complete silence on this particlular topic. We've already tried the method of "continue to wait" -- and it hasn't worked very well so far. It's just gotten us tangled up in meta-arguments, when it seems pretty obvious that there's a solution that there's broad agreement about, that we could perfectly well start implementing and see what it looks like.

It seems that nobody wants to try getting every little detail sorted out in advance. That's not how the LifeWiki works. It's too painful. It just results in no progress being made at all, because the people who are willing to do the work (muzik and Haycat2009 in this case) get bored or disgusted, and they give up and go on to other things.

[confocaloid]

[...] But I'm pretty clear by this point that in this instance, your "continue to wait" option is likely in practice to end up meaning waiting around forever with the LifeWiki in a broken state, because nobody dares to touch it -- whereas trying experiments like these will eventually result in things getting improved! [...]

That's a flawed assumption. Following your idea and "trying experiments like these" will lead to the wiki becoming more and more broken, doing more damage and failing to solve any existing problems (simply because there is no observable consensus on what can be done here, and what needs to be done here, and obviously the issue is controversial).

Continuing to wait is the best possibility I can see at the moment. Leaving things as they are is better than doing more and more damage.

[dvgrn]

[...] But I'm pretty clear by this point that in this instance, your "continue to wait" option is likely in practice to end up meaning waiting around forever with the LifeWiki in a broken state, because nobody dares to touch it -- whereas trying experiments like these will eventually result in things getting improved! [...]

That's a flawed assumption. Following your idea and "trying experiments like these" will lead to the wiki becoming more and more broken, doing more damage and failing to solve any existing problems (simply because there is no observable consensus on what can be done here, and what needs to be done here, and obviously the issue is controversial).

Continuing to wait is the best possibility I can see at the moment. Leaving things as they are is better than doing more and more damage.

Good! You've made a clear prediction here. I've also made a clear prediction.

Now let's work on the actual issue that we're trying to sort out in the other thread. When the experiment is done, we'll find out whether your prediction is accurate, or whether I'm actually on the right track here.

Either way, no need to worry -- no permanent harm will be done. Nothing's really necessarily permanent on the LifeWiki.

[confocaloid]

[...] Either way, no need to worry -- no permanent harm will be done. Nothing's really necessarily permanent on the LifeWiki.

I'd say that's a deeply flawed attitude. Nothing is really permanent in life either. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to act carelessly without trying to preserve consistency that still exists, and preserve contributions of people who are (temporarily) active here.

I think your idea of "trying various experiments" is counterproductive, and detrimental to the state of the wiki and to the overall environment on this website. This is also my objection to all further "experimental campaigns" of the same kind you're advocating.

[dvgrn]

Meta-discussion by confocaloid will be moved to a separate thread. It's an important topic, but it's meta-discussion -- it's not actually relevant to the discussion of next steps to further improve muzik's kinetic-symmetry project.

I disagree. It's not meta-discussion, any more than a number of other replies (including your and Nathaniel's posts) are.

For example my previous post was a reply to Nathaniel's post. I think it is counterproductive to scatter the discussion across the forums.

I think the posts should be kept where they are, at least until the discussion settles a bit.

This is another point where my opinion is different from yours, and it would be nice if you could learn to live with that.

Of course my posts and Nathaniel's posts were meta-discussion! Meta-discussion just means 'discussion about discussion". You tend to do a lot of that.

When you do that, other people -- Nathaniel and I in this case -- have a Catch-22 choice. We can respond to your meta-discussion point -- which is also meta-discussion and further derails the original discussion, but sometimes it seems worthwhile to do it anyway!

Or we have to ignore your meta-discussion points and try to keep working on the actual topic (you don't like that either, and you keep saying so very loudly and clearly).

This kind of thing often ends up being a huge distraction. It makes the actual discussion thread pretty much unreadable, for (apparently) almost everybody except for you and me ... which is one big reason why these types of discussions end up having almost no posts by anybody except for you and me. Everyone else gets bored and goes somewhere else.

So in this case I'm trying the experiment of keeping the discussion in the discussion thread, and any further meta-discussion here. -- No, I'm not going to try moving Nathaniel's post, or any previous meta-discussion by you and me. The idea is just to leave the discussion thread uncluttered enough that Haycat2009 and others can see what's being suggested, and move forward with the next experiment (if they want to).

Long story short
This whole series of posts above has been about whether your objections are being ignored, whether I'm making flawed assumptions, and whether experiments are a good idea or not. None of that has even so much as mentioned the actual proposed future content of the pages we're talking about.

If you're going to post on the other thread, please think carefully about sticking to the actual topic under discussion -- the eventual state of kinetic-symmetry information on the LifeWiki that we're all collaboratively aiming for.

For example, I've suggested transcluding some information about HIckerson-notation static symmetries into both the static symmetry and kinetic symmetry articles. Does that seem workable? If you want to state an opinion on that, direct answers to that question are very welcome on that thread; meta-discussion editorials about how that wasn't a good question to ask ... belong better over here on this thread, out of the way.

[confocaloid]

[...] and try to keep working on the actual topic [...]

Measuring the average volume of posts of each active participant immediately shows that it's not really my choice to flood discussions at the expense of understanding things better, and it's not really my choice to go meta at the expense of on-topic discussions.

My earlier post here directly refers to the actual topic of adding symmetry types to infoboxes. It is meant to be part of the discussion about adding symmetry types to infoboxes. I would really appreciate it if you understood and accepted that.

[dvgrn]

My earlier post here directy refers to the actual topic of adding symmetry types to infoboxes. It is meant to be part of the discussion about adding symmetry types to infoboxes. I would really appreciate it if you understood and accepted that.

I've added a direct link to your post from the discussion thread. If anyone wants to read all of this meta-discussion, they can very easily do so.

Meanwhile, please try to calm down a bit and see if you can avoid constantly second-guessing every little decision I make.

I'm quite easy to work with, and I'll happily change my mind as soon as I'm proven wrong. It's just that ... when you keep repeating your opinion about hypothetical future bad effects, that doesn't do a darn thing to prove me wrong. We'll just have to wait and see if the bad effects that you're predicting, actually happen -- and then we'll solve that problem if in fact it does happen.

[confocaloid]

The effects aren't "hypothetical". The effects are already clearly visible for some time. It's not a question of the effects being "hypothetical", rather a question of willingness to see those effects as real (i.e. understand and accept valid feedback).

My earlier posts ( viewtopic.php?p=196221#p196221 ) are meant to be part of the discussion about adding symmetry types to infoboxes.

[dvgrn]

My earlier posts ( viewtopic.php?p=196221#p196221 ) are meant to be part of the discussion about adding symmetry types to infoboxes.

Sure! And that linked post is indeed part of the discussion. It's just over here in the meta-discussion-thread area, so it doesn't get in the way of actually collaboratively deciding the details of what LifeWiki article content will be.

That link is to this post

IMO, in this case some more "upfront thinking" and discussion (of possible ways to present this information) would be helpful in this case.

Otherwise, if people repeatedly attempt to try different possibilities in turn, without making sure that it's (at least) a self-consistent implementable idea (as opposed to vague thinking), that kind of contradicts the target of having the information on the wiki in a standardized way.

... Notice how that post contains the word "discussion". And it doesn't saying anything at all about what the future state of the LifeWiki should be.

Instead, you're talking about how we should determine that future state. Talking about how and when and under what circumstances a discussion should happen is meta-discussion -- so I'd say it fits in pretty well over here, whereas it's a bit of a distraction over on the actual discussion thread.

Please do feel free, on the other thread, to explain any further ideas about what specific changes you'd like to see happen on the LifeWiki. Most of your specific suggestions and explanations on that thread have been very good ones, extremely helpful.

However, please be aware that some kind of editing experiment is likely to continue unless some other people speak up to suggest a better alternative. I've looked at your "continue to wait" alternative, and it doesn't seem workable (or necessary) -- so I think we're not going to do that for much longer.

I think a little bit of incremental experimentation will work out just fine in the end -- and don't worry, we'll stop after the "A"s and work on those pages until they look like what we've been talking about. That way the "A" articles will become a good clear template that we can safely extend to the rest of the still lifes.

[Haycat2009]

Changed my mind: I will only continue with the change to static symmetry when the holiday starts - I have little time as of late. While I want to see a wiki with static symmetry, I just do not think that I am ready yet - wait until Bichat 1st.

[hotdogPi]

The pages are currently mixed.

https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Special:Wha ... 1_symmetry has 31 pages, all beginning with B.

[dvgrn]

The pages are currently mixed.

https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Special:Wha ... 1_symmetry has 31 pages, all beginning with B.

Yup. I'm waiting for Haycat2009's holidays to start, since Haycat has volunteered to do some more work on this but doesn't have time at the moment.

Certainly anyone else is welcome to pick up the project if they want to, though!

EDIT 1/9/2025: The cryptic "Bichat 1st" mentioned at the beginning of Haycat2009's holidays turns out to have been near the beginning of December. It looks as if Haycat2009 won't be picking this project back up after all, so I'm going to get a start on it this weekend and hope that a volunteer shows up to assist or take over for me, once a workable template is established and any objections are addressed.