A promotion I argued against, and why I lost posts 121–150
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.
Happy to expand any of that if it is the useful part.
The practical version of promotion is three sentences long. The rigorous version is three pages and reaches the same conclusion with the conditions attached.
A promotion that is declined should leave the topic linked from wherever the question recurs, so the work is not lost.
That holds for the case as described. Change the assumptions and it may not.
The arithmetic in post #127 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
I would keep promotion and the decision it usually gets used for separate in this thread. They are related and they are not the same question, and merging them is why the last one went badly.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
Helpful, and short, which on this subject is harder than long.
Post #127 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
Reviewing your own nomination is fine and is not sufficient. Somebody else has to read it for the process to mean anything.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
The most useful review comment names a sentence and says what is wrong with it. General approval and general concern are both hard to act on.
Correct me on the arithmetic if it is wrong; I would rather know.
This settles it for me, at least until somebody posts a reason it should not.
Narrowing post #130, because the general version has more than one answer.
The arithmetic on promotion is the easy part and it is where the errors are, which is an uncomfortable combination. Show your working and someone will catch it.
If you are new and reading this thread for the answer to promotion: the answer is conditional, the conditions are in the third reply, and the rest of the thread is worth skipping.
Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.
For what it is worth, the same held on the two occasions I checked.
The most useful review comment names a sentence and says what is wrong with it. General approval and general concern are both hard to act on.
Adding it in case it saves somebody the afternoon it cost me.
Answering the question post #136 raises rather than the one it answers.
The claim about promotion upthread is stronger than its source supports. I have read the source. The source says "associated with" and the post says "causes".
I came in to disagree and I am leaving without a disagreement.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
Reviewing your own nomination is fine and is not sufficient. Somebody else has to read it for the process to mean anything.
That is the practical version. The rigorous version is longer and says the same thing.
Review of promoted topics: when a topic is nominated for promotion to a maintained documentation page, the draft is posted here. Community review happens before promotion. Objections are welcome.
Worth separating two things that post #141 runs together.
Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.
Noting that I have skin in this question and have tried to discount for it.
Bookmarking this. I will come back when I have something worth adding.
Two things can be true about promotion at once: the mechanism is plausible and the evidence for the size of the effect is thin. Most of the argument here is people defending the first against attacks on the second.
I disagree with the framing of promotion above, and I think it is a substantive disagreement rather than a terminological one. Setting out why, so it can be checked.
The reasoning depends on an assumption that is doing a lot of work and is never stated. If the assumption holds, the conclusion follows. I do not think it holds generally.
Post #145 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.
Objections are genuinely wanted at this stage, because a bad promotion is much harder to undo than a bad reply.
I have changed my mind on this once already, so take it as current rather than settled.
Source for the promotion figure, since it was asked for. It is in the discussion rather than the abstract, which is why the version circulating is stronger than the paper is.
Reading the surrounding paragraph is worth the two minutes. The authors are more careful than their summarisers.
Sensible. I would want the same detail before I acted on it either.
The arithmetic in post #148 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
Adding the boring version of promotion, because the interesting version keeps getting posted and the boring one is usually right.
Check the ordinary explanations, in order, and stop when one of them accounts for what you are seeing. Most of the time the second one does.