1
$\begingroup$

I'm creating this post to fish for opinions. We have had the tag for some time. Do we want to have this type of tag, and thus possibly also similar tags related to other programming languages if/when those become more popular in this context?

There are few enough posts with it that we can still easily purge it, if people want so, but it's better to decide now rather than later.

I'd ask people to voice their opinion about this, if they have any, because when very few people vote/interact on meta posts about these types of decision, it becomes very hard to gauge whether there is consensus in following one direction or the other (which is true in general for meta posts).

$\endgroup$

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
8
$\begingroup$

I don't think we should have these tags.

The main reason is that I don't think we want to give people the impression that questions focusing on the programming language itself should be asked here. I think questions strictly about python, or any other general-purpose programming language, should be asked on Stackoverflow. Questions about python are often acceptable here, but only provided that the answer requires domain-specific knowledge about quantum computing, quantum physics, or more generally about some quantum-computing-related framework.

Having the tag might give newcomers the wrong idea that it is ok to have posts focusing on programming language aspects regardless of their connection with quantum computing.

Furthermore, the tag is also almost always redundant because these types of questions would be tagged with other tags such as anyway (though I don't think this is the main argument against ).

(EDIT 14/07/2021) Given the upvotes to this answer, and the lack of contrarian opinions, I think it's fair to assume that this is the opinion of most people here. I'll therefore proceed to remove this tag (and related ones where they to appear) whenever I see it.

$\endgroup$
12
  • $\begingroup$ It's true that if enough time passes and no one has written any opposing opinions, it's fair (on Stack Exchange) to treat the matter as being closed, but perhaps a bit more than just 12 days, would be appropriate? $\endgroup$
    – user1271772 No more free time
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 18:11
  • $\begingroup$ @user1271772 I mean, yes, possibly, but what time would be appropriate? I'd say it also depends on the responses. In this case, there wasn't a single contrarian opinion thrown around, so the issue seems totally uncontroversial. Being it also relatively minor, it didn't seem a stretch to consider this "passed". $\endgroup$
    – glS Mod
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 18:14
  • $\begingroup$ On one of the other sites that I frequent, there is a meta post that says "As it has been 60 days without any comments or alternative answers, we will treat the matter as closed". From the perspective of ♦moderators or ordinary community moderators that are very active in helping to build the community (these are people active on the site pretty much every day, and want to see policies get pushed through without delay), 60 days seems way too long. However from the perspective of other users who visit the site less often, waiting 60 days gives people confidence that nothing's being rushed and $\endgroup$
    – user1271772 No more free time
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 18:21
  • $\begingroup$ no one is unreasonably pushing their own agenda forward. Personally in this case, I think 60 days would be unnecessarily long, but 12 days is a bit too short (I'm one of the most frequent users of this site and I didn't see any of this thread until now, so it has been at least 15 days since I visited here, probably longer since I think the last time I visited Meta was around the election time). Maybe something in between 12 and 60 days would be appropriate? $\endgroup$
    – user1271772 No more free time
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 18:23
  • $\begingroup$ @user1271772 I agree that what a "fair amount of time" is, totally depends on the context. The way I see it, one should strike a balance between "wait long enough to make absolutely sure we have a consensus (whatever that means)", and "just implement changes when they make sense". I wasn't even sure this particular issue warranted making a meta post at all, tbh, though I figured it was good to have, even if only to set a linkable "precedent" for the courts of tomorrow. $\endgroup$
    – glS Mod
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 18:36
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @user1271772 Here's the thing about your specific time suggestion: why is 13-60 more/less appropriate than 12? It sounds like it is for you personally. Is it the same for others on the site? Personally, I have no clue, so the way I see it, the best course of action seems to not get too bogged down on fake-bureaucracy, until there is actual reason for it. I'd also note that, after a couple of weeks, the prob of someone interested seeing the post is pretty small, and even smaller is the prob of a useful discussion (with enough others contributing I mean) if someone answers after all that time $\endgroup$
    – glS Mod
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 18:37
  • $\begingroup$ @gIS I think that if you want this community to trust you as a ♦moderator, you'll have to wait more than 12 days before accepting your own answer on a Meta post. $\endgroup$
    – user1271772 No more free time
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 18:38
  • $\begingroup$ @user1271772 eh. IMO, the ideal is "trusting" that there is a shared view about what the site should be or where it should go. Having that, there shouldn't be that much need to bothering everyone for every minor change. I'd rather act on things that I find are sufficiently uncontroversial (and are easily reversible) and be proven wrong afterwards, than slow everything down for irrational fears of someone not liking what I'd do. Of course, I'm fine with whatever amount of time people would prefer to wait, if enough people feel that that is warranted. $\endgroup$
    – glS Mod
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 19:04
  • $\begingroup$ But also, do you disagree with the subject of the current post? Because otherwise, this discussion is a bit of an overkill, no? Let's discuss about a change in the amount of time after which we agree of having "reached consensus" when an issue related to that actually arises. Crossing bridges and all that. $\endgroup$
    – glS Mod
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 19:06
  • $\begingroup$ I find it scary that a ♦moderator might act on their proposal without giving the community more than 12 days to discuss it. Also, I find the 6 upvotes within 12 days suspicious considering that there's only 4 people on this entire site who have voted more than 10 times in the year 2021, and 2 of those people are you and me (who didn't vote). So there's 6-2 = 4 users who upvoted this within 12 days, despite not voting much at all in the last 180+ days. $\endgroup$
    – user1271772 No more free time
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 19:18
  • $\begingroup$ @user1271772 ah! I see. That's an interesting datum. I suppose it's not impossible for someone to find it suspicious. I just checked: there doesn't seem to be any recent irregular voting pattern on meta $\endgroup$
    – glS Mod
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 19:30
  • $\begingroup$ What did you "check" ? There's only been 48 users in the history of this site to have voted at least 10 times on Meta, and only 7 of them could have voted between 2-8 July which is when the 6 votes took place. Only 4 of them have posted on Main in the last 18 months, and 2 of those have only voted once on Meta this month, so in total out of 6 upvotes only 2 came from active users that have voted more than once this month. I'm not suspicious of voting fraud, but I think the unusually high upvoting on this answer has to be taken with a grain of salt. Non-featured answer with 6 upvotes = alarm. $\endgroup$
    – user1271772 No more free time
    Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 19:02

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .