Galaxy Zoo Starburst Talk

Office Hours with the Science Team + Moderators

  • trouille by trouille scientist, moderator, admin

    Dear all,

    We thought it might be helpful in launching this next phase -- Data Analysis & Discussion -- to hold regular office hours here on Quench Talk. That way we can have real conversations about the science and the process of analyzing our post-quenched galaxy data.

    I'll be on Quench Talk every Monday through Friday from 1-2pm CST, 6-7pm GMT, 7-8pm BST, and 8-9pm CAT. Other Science Team members and Moderators will also join during this time.

    We're also working to see if we can schedule a 2nd office hours each day, to accommodate different schedules. Check back here for an update on times.

    We'll continue being on Quench Talk at random times as well, but we hope that regular office hours will be a helpful addition.

    Posted

  • jules by jules moderator

    Great idea. Thanks!

    Posted

  • wassock by wassock moderator

    The problem with having "real conversations" on these boards is that it's not always easy to attract someones attention. If you're 'on duty' and ready to chat you have to be constantly monitoring all the threads on all the boards in order to see if someone is trying to start up a conversation.

    So you can see who is online but have to hope that they're not busy doing something else if you want to talk to them - in theory you could mail them but if their screen settings are any thing like mine the web page is very wide, meaning that the "you've got mail" icon is often off screen and it scrolls out of view anyway as you move down the thread. What would be good is a messenger type chat interface. Failing that we could maybe open a board on'chat' and call it "I'm here, talk to me" or something, then anyone who is available to answer questions or just chew the fat can log on as available then say "bye" when they leave Would mean you only need to watch one thread for stuff that needs a swift reply.

    Suggest that if we go that way the board gets cleaned up regular and anything that looks like becoming a wider discussions gets opened as a thread in it's own right on the appropriate board.

    Posted

  • JeanTate by JeanTate in response to wassock's comment.

    Indeed, and the "Follow" facility may make it even more of a challenge (or perhaps less).

    "you have to be constantly monitoring all the threads on all the boards in order to see if someone is trying to start up a conversation" - actually, there's a fairly simply way you can keep track of this: open two (or more) tabs/windows (a personal preference) both with Quench Talk. Keep one on the main page. The second (main) section in that main page is "Recent Discussions", split between Help, Science, and Chat. Within each subsection, recent posts are noted in time order (most recent at the top), with the thread name, subsection (sub-board), first line of the post, zooite author, and a (relative) time stamp. Refresh that page regularly, and you can see who's actively engaged in chatting!

    Of course, when a mod moves posts or threads around, it gets a bit, um, messy (and rather harder to follow).

    Posted

  • vrooje by vrooje moderator, scientist

    Hi all,

    My schedule is a bit insane lately, so it will be hard for me to schedule regular office hours until next week, but this week I will be online on Wednesday and Friday from 11-12 BST, which is 12-1 pm CET, 1-2 pm CAT, 7-8 pm in Japan and 8-9 pm in Sydney. Hopefully that will complement Laura's much more regular availability!

    Posted

  • wassock by wassock moderator in response to JeanTate's comment.

    Jean that's fine if you're the one looking to field the questions,as you do so well, whats more tricky is for someone who'd like to get a hold of you to figure out where you'll pop up next. But the real point is that real time discussions are difficult to organise, what is important is that if someone asks a question they get something back by the next time they log on,becomes a bit like chess by post but if it doesn't happen people will soon loose interest.

    Edit -so when I started typing this you were showing as on-line, by the time posted you were gone - and our world changing discussion is lost because you didn't know I was talking to you 😃

    Posted

  • klmasters by klmasters scientist

    Hey Brooke. I haven't tried Tools yet. How do I get started and load the Quench data into it?

    Posted

  • vrooje by vrooje moderator, scientist

    There are tutorials online in text and video, but actually how about jumping in with a dashboard that has Quench pre-loaded?

    http://quenchtalk.galaxyzoo.org/#/boards/BGS0000008/discussions/DGS00001xi

    When you load that, click "Copy Dashboard" and then go to the Dashboards page and click on your copy to start editing away -- let's make some color-color and other plots, shall we?

    Posted

  • klmasters by klmasters scientist

    Wow thank's Brooke. That's really helpful. I'm trying it now.

    Posted

  • vrooje by vrooje moderator, scientist

    (Karen and I are sitting right next to each other, but trying to do this on Talk for office hours. 😃 )

    Posted

  • klmasters by klmasters scientist

    So my first go at Tools - I really recommend following along with the tutorial as you enter. That really helped. Nice to see the new feature allowing limits on the plots (which I know from other discussion people were needing). I will have a bit more of a play.

    Posted

  • vrooje by vrooje moderator, scientist

    Ooh! And we've just noticed that the morphology data seems to be in the Quench and Control tables as well. That's fantastic!

    Posted