Month: July 2017

Is there like an ‘institute of ancient Greek texts’ that publishes our translated Greek books?

There are several of them, though they are private concerns (publishers) rather than government institutes. The Classical Greek canon is not in fact that big (Nick Nicholas’ answer to How much writing from ancient Greece is preserved? Is it a finite amount that someone could potentially read?), and publishers can set themselves the task of publishing the lot in translation, or more typically in bilingual editions. In English, as other answers have noted, the standard-bearer is Loeb from Harvard University Press, which is now available online for subscription. In French, it’s Les Belles Lettres. In Modern Greek, it’s Kaktos.

My former employer the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae did link ancient texts on its site to online translations into English where available; for canonical texts, they almost always were. The database of translations was never under my purview; feel free to bring any misalignments to their attention.

Quora users need to live in readiness for the prospect of being banned, and email, forums, and social media allow them to stay in touch after being banned. Myself, I have stayed in occasional touch with Sophie Dockx and Laura Hale (although Laura has left Quora rather than being banned), and I have had a couple of exchanges with Marcia Buckie.

All of them, I think it is fair to say, have had to make an adjustment to being off Quora. And all of them are now getting on with their lives.

In one of his books about the historical Jesus, John Dominic Crossan wrote something like, “it is very difficult for us now to conceive how indifferent and peremptory the Romans were in dealing with Jesus.” There was likely no washing of hands, nor any ecce homo. The most he would have gotten was, “Insurrection? The Cross! Next!”

The trolls and spammers and malcontents that routinely get banned after a couple of posts? Part of the detritus that comes with managing any online forum. They waste as much emotion on them, as King Lear’s gods wasted on flies. The same, for that matter, as the most popular Quorans waste on the people they block.

Things should be different for valuable members of the community, that have a lot to offer, and that the staff have gotten to know personally. I have been assured by former community admins that they debated long and hard before banning prominent users. I have been assured by users that Quora employees have been distraught at some of the bans they were forced to make.

I do not have confidence that the current apparent structure of bots and subcontractors that seem to be handling the bulk of Moderation work have that level of engagement, either emotionally or intellectually, with their tasks.

In theory, a bot or subcontractor should show neither fear nor favour, neither love nor hate, which should give their decisions more fairness at least of a robotic sort (which ignores context and wisdom). In practice, reporting is not fairly targeted, and there’s a few Old Planters who don’t seem to be targeted enough; so that doesn’t work out.

Quora is not as clear about this as it should be (of course), but:

• What is Quora’s “Be Nice, Be Respectful” policy? indicates that BNBR applies to answers, comments, and messages.
• Quora’s answer to Does Quora enforce its moderation policies on blog content and comments? indicates that a more *diluted* version of BNBR applies to blogs:

Blogs on Quora are generally unmoderated. Most policies that apply to question-and-answer pages do not apply to blogs.

That includes the policy against memes.

1. Blogs whose primary purpose is to attack, insult, and/or derogatorily label people are not allowed.

• In assessing whether a blog violates this rule, we will evaluate the blog’s content (if the blog is public), photo, title, and description. We may also take into account how much other value there is on the blog.

[…]

2. Blogs which aren’t aimed at attacking people but still have a purpose of attacking content will no longer generate notifications or repost trackbacks.

If the memes target content rather than people, Quora can limdist them, but they won’t necessarily ban them. Presumably that applies to blogs such as Why, Booty?, which do in fact primarily exist to “attack” (make fun of) content (questions), and thus would normally violate BNBR.

Nicole Livingstone: Nicole Dawn Livingstone, OAM (born 24 June 1971) is an Australian former competitive swimmer, Olympic silver medallist, and a television sports commentator and radio presenter. Livingstone competed for Australia in three summer Olympics – 1988, 1992, and 1996 – winning both individual and team medals.

NICOLE LIVINGSTONE O.A.M.

Nicole Livingstone, or, as we imaginatively call her at the time, “Dead Rock”, was in my class for a year when I was 13. Outside of the rarefied circles of Quora and Klingon linguistics, she is more famous than me.

Booooo…

Oh, what was my impression of her? Let’s just say, the onset of puberty is not a time that brings out the best in anyone. And in the unlikely event she remembers me, she’d say the same about me.

Quora, once again, is contradictory about this. Jay Wacker, consider this feedback.

• Quora’s answer to Does content on Quora need to be written in English?

Quora requires that content on English Quora (quora.com) be written in English.

Content includes blogs.

• Quora’s answer to Does Quora enforce its moderation policies on blog content and comments?

Blogs that have content primarily in a language other than English should not attach English topics to the blog.

This presupposes that blogs can be in languages other than English.

The former answer is newer, so I presume it takes priority; the latter answer hasn’t been updated in three years.

Xianhang Zhang’s answer to What are some of the basic “Community Management 101” mistakes that Quora has made? (written 2010, updated 2013):

• Inadequate information architecture of the existing documented procedures. Dogfooding is all well and good but Quora deciding to put its charter documents in the same Q&A system as everything else means that they’re fragmented and may as well not exist for new users.

And, I’ll add, difficult to keep up to date and consistent. As Elliot Mason can attest (Beware of the Leopard).

Swearwords in general, no. See Nick Nicholas’ answer to Does Quora frown upon cussing in one’s answers?

Swearwords that violate current societal taboos about race, as opposed to older taboos about sex: yes. See for example BNBR violation against myself. by Habib Fanny on Sophokagathia

Swearwords that violate current societal taboos about sexuality: depends, but I would encourage you to err on the side of caution.

Quora’s answer to What is Quora’s “Be Nice, Be Respectful” policy? bans:

• Racial, sexual, homophobic, ageist, religious, political, ethnic, or other epithets directed against another contributor.

It also bans:

content or […] a tone that would be interpreted by a reasonable observer as a form of hate speech, particularly toward a race, gender, religion, nationality, ethnicity, political group, sexual orientation or another similar characteristic.

On the other hand, it has a more draconian policy about racial invective:

Using any of the words on Wikipedia’s list of ethnic slurs is not allowed in questions, answers, or comments, unless the purpose is to ask a sincere question about the usage/background of the word.

So saying that a zebra called you a nigger would, per policy, be an automatic benburr. Saying that a zebra called you a faggot may not, and it would be less likely if (a) you are in fact gay, and (b) the moderator is not feeling robotic today. But context is going to matter in such a judgement call, and as Bodnick famously said, Moderation does not do content, let alone context.

Fuck is safe from BNBR sanction. Nigger is unsafe. Faggot from my reading of the policy could be either, but if the context is not clearly pro-gay (reasonable observer), it is likely unsafe.

I’m doubtful by the way that censor-asterisks would make much of a difference, but there’s no explicit policy formulation about that.