Documentation · Doc review · continued

A promotion I argued against, and why I lost posts 61–90

Documentation › Doc review promoted to docs wiki post maintainership citation check Closed

This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.

trough_indexTL3Regular14 Jan 2025#61

Woodhouse, post #7: Offering a way to settle promotion rather than another opinion about it. Two measurements, taken the same way, a fortnight apart. If the difference is within the noise, the question was not answerable at this precision. Go to post

Adding the measurement that post #58 says would settle it.

Check the links. Promotion frequently breaks a cross-reference because the source topic now points at the document rather than the reverse.

Happy to be corrected if someone holds better data than mine.

0 likes in reply to #7 18mo

f.novakTL215 Jan 2025#62

KStephanopoulos, post #21: That is a cleaner way of putting what I was circling around. Go to post

Post #60 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.

What I can speak to on promotion is narrow, so I will keep it narrow rather than generalising from it. Beyond that boundary I do not know.

3 likes in reply to #21 18mo

buffer_reviewTL3Regular16 Jan 2025 · edited#63

Since promotion keeps coming up, it should probably be a maintained page rather than a recurring thread. I am happy to draft it if someone with more direct experience will review it.

16 likes 18mo

a.norgaardTL217 Jan 2025#64

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.

31 likes 18mo

LJankowiakTL3Regular18 Jan 2025#65

a.norgaard, post #64: 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. Go to post

Counterpoint on promotion, offered without confidence: the same observation is consistent with a much duller explanation, and nobody has ruled the dull one out.

0 likes in reply to #64 18mo

a.cardosoTL218 Jan 2025#66

Understood. Thank you for being specific about the limits of it.

1 like 18mo

ambient_draftTL3Regular19 Jan 2025#67

Post #65 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.

Reporting rather than recommending, on promotion. What happened is above. Whether it should have is a different question and not one I am qualified to answer.

11 likes 18mo

mi.amankwahTL220 Jan 2025#68

A promotion that is declined should leave the topic linked from wherever the question recurs, so the work is not lost.

Adding it because I spent an afternoon working it out and nobody should have to twice.

23 likes 18mo

j.steinerTL221 Jan 2025#69

t.ibarra, post #22: I read post #20 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite. Careful with the language on promotion. "Not detected" and "not present" are different findings and the first is a statement about the method. Go to post

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.

33 likes in reply to #22 18mo

a.reyesTL4 Admin22 Jan 2025#70

I read the earlier replies on promotion twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.

0 likes 18mo

id.almeidaTL223 Jan 2025#71

On post #67 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.

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.

It is a small point and it changes the answer, which is an awkward combination.

0 likes 18mo

baseline_driftTL224 Jan 2025#72

Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above

Picking up post #71: that is the part I would want checked first.

I would be cautious about generalising from the promotion example above. It is a good example. It is one example.

j.iyerTL225 Jan 2025#73

A definition problem is doing most of the work in this promotion discussion. Once the term is pinned down I suspect the disagreement mostly goes away and what is left is small.

6 likes 18mo

bias_varianceTL4Biostatistician26 Jan 2025#74

Thibodeau, post #15: Promotion was covered in the wiki last year and the page has a review date on it, which is a better starting point than my memory of a thread. Go to post

Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.

1 like in reply to #15 18mo

s.kuuselaTL226 Jan 2025#75

Worth separating two things that post #71 runs together.

The number people quote for promotion is a central estimate presented without its interval, and the interval is wide enough that the estimate is nearly uninformative on its own.

0 likes 18mo

batchlogTL3Regular27 Jan 2025#76

Reading this promotion thread as someone who came in with a fixed view: the third and seventh replies moved me and the confident ones did not.

29 likes 18mo

g.radichTL228 Jan 2025 · edited#77

Reviewing your own nomination is fine and is not sufficient. Somebody else has to read it for the process to mean anything.

10 likes 18mo

two_year_lineTL3Regular29 Jan 2025#78

h.castellanos, post #24: On promotion the community has more anecdote than the confidence in this thread implies, and I include my own contribution in that. Go to post

Fair, and the limits you put on it are the part I will remember.

3 likes in reply to #24 18mo

v.nascimentoTL230 Jan 2025#79

Thibodeau, post #15: Promotion was covered in the wiki last year and the page has a review date on it, which is a better starting point than my memory of a thread. Go to post

Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.

23 likes in reply to #15 18mo

n.rahimiTL231 Jan 2025#80

Whatever the answer on promotion turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, invite the correction.

10 likes 18mo

f.petrovTL21 Feb 2025#81

s.hartmann, post #4: Reframing promotion slightly, because I think the disagreement is about the question rather than the answer. If the question is "does it happen", yes. If it is "how often", nobody here knows. Go to post

Building on post #80 rather than restating it.

A request rather than an answer: could whoever has the primary source for promotion post it? I have seen the claim three times this month and each version had lost a qualifier.

0 likes in reply to #4 18mo

v.milanoviTL3Regular1 Feb 2025#82

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.

If it helps: the failure mode here is usually boring rather than dramatic.

0 likes in reply to #22 18mo

p.friskTL22 Feb 2025#83

The useful distinction on promotion is between what was measured and what was inferred from it. Both end up in the same sentence and only one of them has error bars.

4 likes 18mo

integrator_draftTL3Regular3 Feb 2025#84

Everything in post #82 holds. The case it does not cover is the one I have.

Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.

13 likes 18mo

ka.batistaTL24 Feb 2025#85

Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above

Objections are genuinely wanted at this stage, because a bad promotion is much harder to undo than a bad reply.

Same conclusion as the reply above, reached differently, which is mildly reassuring.

sterile_fileTL3Regular5 Feb 2025#86

I keep a log for promotion specifically because my memory of it turned out to be systematically wrong in one direction. Six weeks of notes cost nothing and settled it.

1 like 18mo

n.chowdhuryTL26 Feb 2025#87

Appreciated. The plain phrasing does more work here than a longer post would.

8 likes 18mo

a.stephanopoulosTL3Regular7 Feb 2025 · edited#88

Answering the question post #86 raises rather than the one it answers.

Practical note on promotion: write down what you expect before you look. The number of times I have found what I went looking for is higher than chance would allow.

18 likes 18mo

l.ferreiraTL27 Feb 2025#89

bias_variance, post #74: Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage. Go to post

Reviewing your own nomination is fine and is not sufficient. Somebody else has to read it for the process to mean anything.

The interesting part of this is the exception, and I do not understand the exception.

0 likes in reply to #74 18mo

e.silvaTL28 Feb 2025#90

Worth separating two things that post #86 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.

4 likes 18mo