I only read Meta every so often but I've seen lots of talk about SCITE and FGITW. I have no idea what these are!
Can someone please define and explain these abbreviations?
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3Acronyms you can pronounce as words. Abbreviations or initialism you'd want for FGITW or SCITE.– randomCommented Aug 27, 2009 at 6:02
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16SCITE is a nice text editor.– wimCommented Mar 8, 2012 at 22:54
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3related (not a duplicate): Stack Overflow Glossary - Dictionary of Commonly-Used Terms– gnatCommented Jul 16, 2012 at 3:20
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3what does MSO mean?– RedCaioCommented Feb 14, 2016 at 20:44
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1@RedCaio Meta Stack Overflow.– EKonsCommented Oct 6, 2016 at 18:28
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faq-proposed?– ZackaryCommented Nov 7, 2018 at 19:35
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Both FGITW and SCITE are now in the list of memes.– This_is_NOT_a_forumCommented Mar 10, 2020 at 14:36
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The text editor is "SciTE" (Scintilla based text editor).– This_is_NOT_a_forumCommented Mar 10, 2020 at 14:43
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5 Answers
FGITW - Fastest Gun in the West
The fastest reply to a question. Relevant to how Stack Overflow sorted answers until around August 27 2009. The original sorting was 'number of votes' followed by 'oldest answer first'. This meant that the first answerer was given a natural advantage as their answer was at the top of the page.
This could be seen as a disadvantage to answerers that took longer to write their response to a question. Although their answer might be 'better', the first answer given would often be upvoted first.
SCITE - Slowest Cheater in the East
Relevant to how Stack Overflow currently sorts answers. The current sorting is 'number of votes' followed by 'random'. This means there is no longer preference given to the age of an answer.
This could be gamed when a user copied and/or combined other answers and then strategically vote other answers down. Someone visiting the question would see this combined answer as the best one and vote it up, placing it to the top of the answer list. Once the gamer had enough votes that would remove the downvotes from other answers.
The length of time for an up or downvote before changes were locked was dramatically reduced in an attempt to alleviate this problem.
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71Doesn't FGITW also apply to folks posting a partial answer to get into that "first" slot, and only then start editing (possibly within the 5 minute grace period) to change it into a true answer?– ArjanCommented Mar 31, 2012 at 12:05
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29Laughed about the vague estimation in "sorted answers until around August 27 2009". Commented Nov 14, 2013 at 12:33
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4@Alex, How does locking the downvote stop SCITE? The sciter can simply let the downvote stay there and get -1 rep... not a big deal, considering he gets +10 for each upvote.– PacerierCommented Aug 30, 2015 at 22:37
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4Do people actually do SCITE? What benefit would it give them?– KelmikraCommented Oct 20, 2015 at 0:29
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1@Kelmikra I believe the "benefit" is described on SE as rep-whoring. Commented Sep 27, 2016 at 18:07
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The locking system doesn't matter. As soon as you have enough rep to edit posts you can unlock it agian with a simple edit. Commented Jan 28, 2018 at 8:45
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@Pacerier it doesn't stop it, but it helps to mitigate it. Some questions can get dozens of answers, and the SCITE would need to downvote all of them to bump their own post up, taking possibly 3 or 4 upvotes worth of rep loss - without locking in the down vote they would get that back, putting a time limit to change the vote changes the cost/benefit of being SCITE.– AndrewCommented Mar 22, 2021 at 16:44
FGITW - Fastest Gun in the West - Fastest to reply to a question
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Pretty crazy eh? I kinda like it, but it's hard to get used to. Commented Aug 27, 2009 at 5:52
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1And for your reading pleasure: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9731/… Commented Aug 27, 2009 at 5:55
Only noticed someone tagging a couple of posts with scite-problem on questions about FGITW.
So SCITE is probably about Seven Chinese In The East.
Or:
- Slowest Cowboy In The East
- Stupid Clauses In The EULA
- Some Clueless Idiot Teasing Ernest Borgnine
Then again, it could be the seven cities in the East short changing internationlists taking earned sabbaticals, charging indignant tariffs everywhere.
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The last one is actually SCITE-B, an obvious reference to Tim Conway. Commented Jun 2, 2016 at 12:17
SCITE - Slowest Cheater in the East
answered Aug 27, 2009 at 5:49
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8Wait, so what exactly makes a SCITE? Showing up late and copying other answers? Commented Aug 27, 2009 at 5:59
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Searching for SCITE turns up this question wherein Mehrdad seemingly coins the term.
We all know search sucks, but it's not completely useless :-)
AFAIK, the idea is that you copy the FGITW's answer, then vote them down, thus earning votes and the misplaced-respect of your peers. Although I would have thought that the fastest cheater would do better than the slowest.
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4It doesn't even always have to involve downvoting. If you post an answer and do not collect any votes, I can come in and copy your answer 20 minutes later. Because we will both have 0 score, our sort order will be randomized so there is the opportunity for me to appear above you, therefore I can collect easy upvotes from people who are too lazy to pay attention to timestamps. If I appear first it is only natural to assume that I posted first. It is also easy to assume that someone could PUNISH you for posting a duplicate, when you were actually the originator.– TheTXICommented Aug 27, 2009 at 11:18