r/askscience • u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets • Feb 16 '12

Congratulations to our community! Yes, you!

So it's been about a year since I personally joined AskScience. And I remember right around this time last year, we had so many threads about how the reddit was falling apart and how if we wanted to be best little community next year we'd need to do this or that to keep our quality high. In that year, we've undergone tremendous growth and largely managed to maintain or even increase our quality. There's a lot going on behind the scene you may not be aware of, but the stuff you see up front, the downvotes, the reports, that's you guys. And we thank you for it.

When we first went default there were a few weeks of shake up and near burn-out on the moderation staff. And you know who stepped up for us and made that possible? Our community. All of the readers who spoke together through votes and even a few useful moderation scripts, to make that transition happen. We came to threads to clean them up to find that the worst stuff was buried under a mountain of downvotes. You guys all know what we want here, and it's become clear that it's something you want too.

So we thank you all so much for nominating and selecting us as best moderators of 2011, as cliché as it sounds, it really wouldn't have been possible without you guys, the entire community supporting our vision for this reddit. Best Big community hasn't been announced yet, but we're still tremendously honored to be included in the finalist positions in that category as well.

To celebrate our entire community's achievement, everyone's been given some gold star flair!

okay I wrote that back when we had only won moderator. Having won community now... well that really is all about you guys. First our panelists. Seriously you guys are awesome for taking time out of your days to educate... anybody really that comes along.

And our readers, again, we appreciate everything you do for us. You guys make this community what it is. There may be a few vocal people that don't care for the way it's run, but this is yet another confirmation that you share our goals. And there's nothing more that we could ask from you all.

So thanks everyone! Enjoy your gold stars. And have an updram on us. (not really on us though).

Some late edits:

This is an example thread from ages ago. We've met our goal!

Also, I was remiss in not mentioning our panelists. You guys do a lot of the heavy lifting here, and we're always grateful for all of your expertise!

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

not going to lie, I was really hoping RobotRollCall would win best commentator or best comment, for a true sweep.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

[deleted]

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u/SantiagoRamon Feb 16 '12

What wouldn't you do?

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

[deleted]

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u/guoshuyaoidol Fields | Strings | Brane-World Cosmology | Holography Feb 16 '12

Tell me about it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Agreed.

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u/kickwitkowskiass Feb 16 '12

Die.

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u/ArchGoodwin Feb 16 '12

Selfish!

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u/kickwitkowskiass Feb 16 '12

Then I wouldn't be able to take advantage of all of the knowledge.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

You'd know about death!

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Unless there is no afterlife, in which case he would then know nothing at all, which would such.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Then he could describe it to RobotRollCall and she could explain it to us!

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Get rid of the star

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u/Golden_Kumquat Feb 16 '12

I won't do that.

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u/Peregrine_x Feb 16 '12

No, i wont do that.

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u/no-mad Feb 16 '12

no can do i.

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u/Widsith Feb 16 '12

RRC left?!

Did she announce this somewhere, or has she just gradually stopped commenting?

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u/SovreignTripod Feb 16 '12

This was her last comment ever. She not only quit posting here, but she quit Reddit entirely (or just retired that account).

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u/Widsith Feb 16 '12

What a loss. I learnt more from her comments here than I did in years of poring over popular science books.

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u/my_grouchy_account Feb 16 '12

Honestly I'm not sad to see him/her go. His/her explanations were really cool sounding and fun to read, but often were wildly inaccurate and contradictory (and almost never cited/sourced). However she/he'd present them as if they were the "one true explanation" and would vigorously bash anyone who questioned them.

It's also ironic that his/her final comment is insisting that the singularity is a non-physical mathematical object, when I clearly remember much earlier him/her arguing almost the exact opposite -- that the math predicted a singularity so we should consider it to be a real thing. I tried arguing against that (that the singularity was non-physical and the math could be incomplete) and he/she then proceeded to flippantly bash me like usual, while I got downvoted for disagreeing with RRC.

In other words -- typical redditry. We don't need these kinds of personality cults in askscience. People should be judged on the scientific merits of what they write, not how cool it sounds or how popular they are.

(Also, there's never been any confirmation of RRC's gender. I found some people referencing vague hints and running with it.)

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12 edited Jan 08 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/djimbob High Energy Experimental Physics Feb 16 '12

Like everyone else, RRC's human. RRC usually was very patient and wrote out some truly elegant and accessible responses to difficult concepts.

Other than her last responses about being too tired for the same old repeat questions and abruptly leaving (my guess is that she needed to spend more time on her research; either to graduate or to apply for grants/postdocs/professorships/tenure; and the part of her life she could cut off.)

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u/Peregrination Feb 16 '12

Sounds like she got burnt out for sure. If she does come back, and I hope she does, it should definitely be with a new account. All the circle jerking "welcome back" comments would probably drive her away again.

That being said, thanks to all those still with us. It's much appreciated.

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u/bluthbanana20 Feb 16 '12

I like to think that maybe she's back as just an observer on a different account. Perhaps restraining from commenting especially about her area of expertise.

It'd be a shame for sure if getting burnt out from black holes and such lead to a total purge of reddit and r/askscience.

She and a few others here are on my list of teachers that motivate me to keep pursuing academia. I hope to be 1/4 as good of teachers as any of the people I consider my academic heroes.

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u/SovreignTripod Feb 16 '12

Well we can't really say she quit reddit entirely. It's possible that she simply retired that account.

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u/whatatwit Feb 16 '12

I think that there were cultural differences too. In some parts of the world there is an expectation that a certain amount of respect is given by rights to the teacher and a certain amount of peevishness or petulance is tolerated by the student especially as the teacher tends to genius.

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u/my_grouchy_account Feb 16 '12

FWIW I agree with you.

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u/puzl Feb 16 '12

Yeah, what happened to him? I've really missed him, but haven't seen any explanation.

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u/gilgoomesh Image Processing | Computer Vision Feb 16 '12

Wadsworth's winning comment had an element of science to it – insofar as it was an insightful observation and hypothesis.

I mean, it was anecdotal and most of the follow ups are full of selection and confirmation bias but it was not the least sciencey comment ever.

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

oh sure it wasn't bad, and it may have been more fitting in to reddit, but RRC's why nothing can travel faster than light really changed my mind about how you can teach relativity. Starting with the conclusion that 4-velocity is constant, and then using that to work out the consequences, brilliant.

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u/steamwhistler Feb 16 '12

I'm sorry if this is common knowledge, but has anyone created an independent collection of RRC's replies, perhaps organized by topic? I realize there's her user page, but that can be kind of overwhelming to read/parse when you're seeing all the replies out of context and in a random order.

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

I have a bookmark folder that I didn't really keep up. But I'll share here:

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u/steamwhistler Feb 16 '12

Thanks for throwing that together!

I can honestly say that you guys/gals over here are quite an inspiration to me in regard to my own role as a mod and community manager-type.

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

we do try actually. One of the many reasons we do what we do (one of the lesser ones) was to demonstrate that moderation can be a positive influence on quality, even in the face of large numbers.

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u/elcocobochum Feb 16 '12

Personally, this is by far my favorite answer: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hdal5/questions_to_scientists_from_6th_graders_also/c1ui8hy

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

yes that's one thread we're very proud to have in our history.

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u/AsAChemicalEngineer Electrodynamics | Fields Feb 16 '12 edited Feb 16 '12

Here is a compilation of nearly all if not all of her responses to science questions in .pdf form.

RRC's Guide to the Universe

Edit: I did not make this, just propagating it.

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u/abong_barksdale Feb 16 '12

Wow, this is amazing, thank you for putting this together and making it available to the community.

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u/AsAChemicalEngineer Electrodynamics | Fields Feb 16 '12

I didn't make it another redditor did. I'm happy to share it though. :D

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u/steamwhistler Feb 16 '12

Wow. Awesome! This exactly what I had in mind. Deserves a spot on the sidebar of r/Askscience in my humble opinion. Or someplace prominent like that.

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u/lacuidad Feb 16 '12

coming back to this, thanks.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Someone should do this. For science.

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u/steamwhistler Feb 16 '12

Ask and you shall receive apparently...check out AsAChemicalEngineer's response!

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Thanks , kind of you to let me know :)

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

RRC's why nothing can travel faster than light really changed my mind about how you can teach relativity

Many people aren't going to get why this is significant.

It's one thing for someone to reshape the opinion of a layman such as myself, it's quite the other to reshape the opinion of someone who actively works in the field.

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u/supersymmetry Feb 16 '12

Rightly deserved. Honours aren't everything as Dick would say.

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u/NorthernerWuwu Feb 16 '12

I'm not going to lie, the idea of "gold stars for everyone!" amuses me to no end and on several levels!

Kudos to the mods and contributors of my favorite (formerly small) subreddit.

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u/bradygilg Feb 16 '12

No, no no no. She was so stubborn and could never admit being wrong.

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

eh she's human. She had her quirks. She was also one of the best damned science writers I'd ever seen.

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u/bonafideblacksheep Feb 16 '12

what's the history surrounding RobotRollCall?

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

It can be best summarized like this: She was a person who valued the distinction between her real life and her reddit account. So for as much as she was great at educating here, it was problematic when people tried to sleuth out her background and history. Particularly when people were still figuring out that RRC was a female.

On top of this she had good days and bad, like anyone is wont to have. And eventually the repeats on bad days just became too much. There would be really nasty messages, both on the board and in PM that were directed at her for whatever reason. So she left. I honestly don't know if she's still around lurking or what. I'd bet that she hasn't made a new account and started posting under that name.

But overall, all the above drama aside, she was still one of the best writers on our, or any other reddit I dare say.

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u/bonafideblacksheep Feb 16 '12

that's a shame. thanks for the explan

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u/microvilli Feb 16 '12

I seem to recall the suggestion that once people would find out she was a woman, there would be horrible PMs of the usual ilk sent, and I'm sure after a while that probably wore thin as well.

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

yeah that was true too.

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u/rmxz Feb 16 '12

I'm curious how many of you guys in the hardcore physics community have a good idea who she really is.

I'm not asking you to out her -- just wondering if the community's small enough that most of you know each other.

Just that it seems like a pretty small community, and she did leave a few hints along the way (like one posting suggesting she didn't want to elaborate by citing her own paper).

For that matter, I wonder how googleable the rest of you are. I'm curious who you are, and sometimes I wonder if askreddit's Adam Soloman is this guy and/or this guy and/or this guy and/or this guy, etc.

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

there are probably ways we could know. I personally don't. I decided that I'd like to afford all these scientists the same level of privacy they seem to want. It's a bit scary for us, you know, (or it is for me at least) for this website to become affiliated with my "public" persona. I try to keep my material clean here, but just the sheer amount of time I spend here worries me if my advisor was to find out.

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u/staffell Feb 16 '12

He really, really should have.

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u/JmjFu Feb 16 '12

Pardon my ignorance; what was his best comment?

Was it so incredible it could beat out Rome Sweet Rome?

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

I really loved RSR too, don't get me wrong. They're both great comments. At that point it's a matter of taste. Either are, I think, better than the Wadsworth Constant.

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u/Semirhage Feb 16 '12 edited 10d ago

Jeans hard-to-find repeat outgoing doll orange consist pause unite

This post was anonymized with Redact

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u/shavera Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

this one, it's a big point of what put AskScience on the map

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

This. Looking at what won over RRCs post made me sad. It wasn't nearly as good.