The rule says, “No vehicles in the park” • Hacker News Board

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#511

Post by FartyMcFarter » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:24 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #482

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, you can academically wonder whether an orbiting space station is a vehicle and whether it's in the park, but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) doing their jobs don't have to follow the sign. Now you're assuming the intent. The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle drivi…

> If you're the park ranger and the local police come into the park in their car chasing after some criminals... If the exact same thing happens but you're having a dispute with the local police It doesn't matter, the rules on police and emergency vehicles usually supersede some local rule about a park. The park is not some absolute ruler of the land, sure it can put rules for general/everyday use but a lot of things…

The game didn't say the park is contained in another land. It's a "hypothetical park". It could even exist in a virtual reality that doesn't have any other rules for all we know.

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#512

Post by aerio » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:25 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #255

dmattia wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author should have made the statement "A sandwich is an item of food consisting of two pieces of bread with meat, cheese, or other filling between them". And then asked questions like: - Is a grilled cheese a sandwich? - Is two pieces of bread with a third piece of bread in the middle a sandwich? - Is a hotdog a sandwich? - Is a taco a sandwich? - Is a breadbowl a sandwich? - Is a poptart a sandwich? - Is…

> Is a pizza folded in half a sandwich? If you don’t cut it, no. If you cut it at the fold, yes. Now what if the pizza crust is toasted enough that, while it was not your intent, it breaks evenly at the seam during the act of folding it in half, and then you proceed to collapse the two halves before taking a bite. Did you have a sandwich for lunch?

Is a pizza folded in half on itself and cut at the fold just a cheese and pepperoni melt?

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#513

Post by chii » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:25 AM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #445

torton wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this take. Most questions were very obvious when thought about from the angle of "what is the intent of the rule", which is likely to be "let people enjoy the park by not allowing large, noisy, smelly conveyances". Bikes, kites, monuments, Radio Flyers, etc. do not violate the intent. A tank is clearly a vehicle but doesn't violate the intent because it does not interfere with people enjoying the park. A…

Bikes do annoy people with small children because some people try to ride bikes fast where not appropriate, and this is dangerous when small children change direction unpredictably.

In other words, absent any actual formal specified intent, people interpret the rules to best suit their own self-interest.

if you got kids at the park, you'd imagine bikes as being a nuisance. If you're the one riding the bike, you'd imagine the park is meant for you to enjoy and thus the boke isnt a nuisance.

This is exactly the point being made by the questionaire!

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#514

Post by RheingoldRiver » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:27 AM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #491

RheingoldRiver wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, exactly, is the graph showing? % of people who said "Yes this is a vehicle in the park" or % of people who agree with you ? It's very difficult to tell as I said yes only to the car and the memorial...

Your first interpretation is correct. No one thinks a kite is a vehicle. Everyone thinks a private car is a vehicle. Everything else is in between. If your answers were consistent with a consistent population, there would be a threshold above which all your bars turn red. Any churn in that consistency (my last six bars are a mixture of red and green) shows a deviation of some kind, but I don’t know how this accounts…

I see. This graph is pretty confusing imo. My first idea for a visualization is to use a stacked bar chart that always adds up to 100% with "No it's not a vehicle" above "Yes it is a vehicle." Use 4 colors, dark red, light red, dark green, light green, and emphasize your choices with the dark ones.

Add a couple checkboxes with interactivity:

- Show only "Is vehicle" bars

- Show only "Is not vehicle" bars

- Show only answers that agreed with me

- Show only answers that disagreed with me

And a "toggle colorblind mode" although I'm not sure what colors would be ideal for that.

Any other ideas for how to make this thing actually readable?

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#515

Post by Etherlord87 » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:29 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #435

crazygringo wrote: post #198

I'm fascinated by the fact that my takeaway is the precise opposite of what the author intended. To me, the answer to all of the questions was crystal-clear. Yes, you can academically wonder whether an orbiting space station is a vehicle and whether it's in the park, but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) do…

> Yes, you can academically wonder whether an orbiting space station is a vehicle and whether it's in the park, but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) doing their jobs don't have to follow the sign. Now you're assuming the intent. The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle drivi…

> Now you're assuming the intent.

No, it's not assuming, it's interpreting based on prior experience in communication.

> The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff.

Then the sign would mention that, simple as that.

> But the larger point is that people can adopt the "obvious intent" version of the rule when it suits them and the pedantic version of the rule when it suits them.

I agree with you here, it happens all the time, is a problem, and perhaps the test is useful to those, who haven't figured this truth so far. Probably not that many in the HN crowd…

I'll add that there's a problem with the test: "does it violate the rule" is not very meaningful. It could be understood in two ways:

- does it technically, strictly speaking, "violate" the rule, meaning, it does something the sign tells you not to do,

- or is the example acting against the intent of the author of the sign.

If the test asked "should violator be punished?" I think it would be more meaningful, otherwise it's just synthetic and the controversy is just about semantics, it doesn't incentive a discussion about our worldview and the rules we put in place, it just provokes to argue pedantically about how we phrase a message.

Moreover it possibly misleads people to think they disagree on something they really don't.

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#516

Post by larsrc » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:30 AM UTC

I like this experiment! I hope to see some further analysis on the results. I came to a similar conclusion years back about languages: it's impossible to translate a word perfectly because the border cases differ. Is it a cake or a bread? Banana bread is called bread in the US, but as a Dane I consider it "kage" (the usual translation of "cake").

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#517

Post by rprwhite » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:30 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #435

crazygringo wrote: post #198

I'm fascinated by the fact that my takeaway is the precise opposite of what the author intended. To me, the answer to all of the questions was crystal-clear. Yes, you can academically wonder whether an orbiting space station is a vehicle and whether it's in the park, but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) do…

> Yes, you can academically wonder whether an orbiting space station is a vehicle and whether it's in the park, but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) doing their jobs don't have to follow the sign. Now you're assuming the intent. The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle drivi…

This is a great anecdote for the need of intent. But, you also need context. Without either of those it’s very, very hard to agree on rules. And agreeing on either context or intent, let alone both, in a small community is hard. Doing so across the internet is damn near impossible and that was the point of the article.

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#518

Post by FartyMcFarter » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:31 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #404

willsmith72 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What??? Please explain. I can't fathom how a no vehicles sign would apply to bicycles or skateboards

Allow me to introduce you to the dictionary[0] Vehicle (noun) 1. a means of carrying or transporting something ...such as ... a: motor vehicle ... b: a piece of mechanized equipment 2 : an agent of transmission : carrier 3: a medium through which something is expressed, achieved, or displayed ---------------- You're thinking of specifically a __motorized__ vehicle. Which is a different thing than "vehicle". I think y…

So no one can bring their legs into the park, as they are a means of transporting things?

"Carrier" is also a very broad term, no human carrying anything is allowed in the park then.

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#519

Post by chii » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:31 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #255

dmattia wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author should have made the statement "A sandwich is an item of food consisting of two pieces of bread with meat, cheese, or other filling between them". And then asked questions like: - Is a grilled cheese a sandwich? - Is two pieces of bread with a third piece of bread in the middle a sandwich? - Is a hotdog a sandwich? - Is a taco a sandwich? - Is a breadbowl a sandwich? - Is a poptart a sandwich? - Is…

> Is a pizza folded in half a sandwich? If you don’t cut it, no. If you cut it at the fold, yes. Now what if the pizza crust is toasted enough that, while it was not your intent, it breaks evenly at the seam during the act of folding it in half, and then you proceed to collapse the two halves before taking a bite. Did you have a sandwich for lunch?

so an open-face sandwich is technically not a sandwich in your definition then! Even tho it's in the name!

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#520

Post by atchoo » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 7:32 AM UTC

Qwertious wrote: post #400

crazygringo wrote: post #198

I'm fascinated by the fact that my takeaway is the precise opposite of what the author intended. To me, the answer to all of the questions was crystal-clear. Yes, you can academically wonder whether an orbiting space station is a vehicle and whether it's in the park, but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) do…

>but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) doing their jobs don't have to follow the sign. I answered that the police and ambulances were obviously breaking the rules, because they are. The difference is that ambulances/police are allowed to break the rules in an emergency - famously, ambulances have a legal ri…

> I answered that the police and ambulances were obviously breaking the rules

I think the ambiguity here is not what the rule means, but what "breaking the rules" means.

IMHO it should have been phrased as "would you refuse entry to" i.e. whether you would enforce action based on the rule.

If you would not bar entry to emergency vehicles, that would be the same as what others mean by "not breaking the rules" i.e. it is implicitly allowed.