Talk:2789: Making Plans

Help, I can't move my comment down! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 01:28, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Here I was expecting something about cryptography and how Charlie just invited himself along. 172.71.146.146 04:08, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

The alphabetical citation bias occurred in psychology but not biology or geoscience. (Biologist married to psychologist, gloating.) ---- 162.158.186.213 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think the Wikipedia quote and reference link may be obsolete. It was a big deal when it was published half a decade ago, but editors took note, and now almost every peer reviewed paper gets references listed by the order they occur in the text, don't they? Surely there must be some post-2018 sources on this from journals saying they've changed their style guides we can include? 172.71.155.42 22:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with the explanation about the alphabetical sorting of Cueball on Yvonne's phone. AFAIK, Cueball is only the fan nickname given on this wiki, and not an in-universe name, right? Names starting with R would be pretty far down an alphabetical list, like in Rob... or Randall 162.158.233.69 06:49, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree and have already deleted this. Made a comment on my changes along the idea you wrote here. --Kynde (talk) 07:04, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I feel like a better reference point for this than academic citations or ballot paper ordering would be old paper phone directories, where you'd find companies calling themselves things like 'AAA Assistance' in order to appear at the top of their sector listings. Can anyone find a non-anecdotal reference for this?172.71.178.137 09:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

If only people were like books... (I have (re)read far more Asimov and Clarke than Wells and Zelazny, but none of them complain!) ...but clearly no absolute ordering is perfect. "Most recently contacted" suffers from the problem of some new contacts shuffling someone out of the current head-of-list spot and then they plummet to the 'old' end. "Least recently contacted" would be better, but would 'auto-ghost' everyone the moment contact is re-established (or attempted, if it was based upon your reaching out, not their deigning to reach back again).
Perhaps a "rolling road-block" method of (say) today starting at A, tomorrow starting at B(/wherever you left off today), and so on until it wraps around Z->A again. Or half your "social management" spent at the top-end, a quarter of it jumps half way down, an eighth of it half of the rest of the way, a sixteenth by jumping a further half of the remainder, with discretion to look up and down from the proposed landing-point to choose a neighbouring contact with more hopefulbcontactability... That latter would work even better on a "by most recent contact" sort, as well, as it churns and refreshes the current social circles to regain valuable 'lost' contacts without overly penalising the current circle of recent acquaintences in such a paradoxical manner.
Of course... the fewer friends you have, the simpler the problem! I have never been so happy to be a sub-Dunbar individual, and so not have all the anxieties that those with exceedingly active social lives must have! Even if it means I might just have to phone my water-company up, every now and then, to bitch about how my telephone company forgot my birthday and is now refusing to return my calls... ;) 172.70.91.69 09:29, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier just to have randomised ordering each time you load? Of course, all of this overlooks the primary reason for having them alphabetical in the first place - to be able to locate a specific contact when you have a specific reason for contacting them, which any of these other systems would make a pain in the arse.172.70.91.170 09:34, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

But which (pseudo-)random reordering? Can you guarantee thst your LCG/LFSR/Mersenne implementation, and how it is consulted to shuffle and reprioritises your contacts, has sufficiently long cycle-periodicity to avoid you still entirely neglecting someone because they still usually end up below any cut-off point?!? 172.70.85.136 09:47, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Depends, obviously, on how long the list is, but I think that would be VERY unlucky. That said, more deterministic order could be more reliable. -- Hkmaly (talk) 23:58, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Clearly, the correct is an AI social helper who will remind you to reach out to friends you haven't contacted recently, along with keeping track of birthdays, anniversaries, and other special reasons to contact everyone in your social circle. All the while, it would be learning your language patterns and voice, so that you can eventually just let it take over your social life entirely. You can hang out with your three real friends while your AI hangs out with the AIs of the fifty people in your contact list that you don't actually remember. (Is it obvious I'm an introvert?) 172.69.247.44 10:11, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

("... three real friends"? You socialite. If only I were such a shameless party animal!) 172.70.86.7 10:27, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Speaking about birthdays ... if you always contact person on birthday, you have practical guarantee you won't have anyone not contacted more than year! -- Hkmaly (talk) 23:58, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

As a person with an A name, I find I often get pocket-dialed by various people. Discussing this with people whose names start at the other end of the alphabet, they observed that they never got pocket-dialed. Is this another example of the same phenomenon, or do I have a case of innaccurate anecdotal evidence? Thisfox (talk) 22:48, 15 June 2023 (UTC)