Talk:Octomino II hasslers

Is p138 a hassler?

I don't see Gabriel's p138 as a hassler. I think that in a hassler, there would be a hassled reaction or object, which periodically interacts with a hassling structure (stable on its own). Gabriel's p138 does not have a periodically interacting hassling structure (this oscillator is entirely a reaction, with four interacting copies of Octomino II). See also my older post. Confocal (talk) 20:39, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

carsoncheng disagreed with you on that forum post, and Sokwe and I disagreed with you in the talk page you linked in the edit summary. How can you use those examples as justification to make an edit? This seems to be a recurring pattern, with you editing something and saying that you gave a reason, but ignoring when people disagree with it and reverting similar edits done by other people. --Galoomba (talk) 16:25, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Note that this edit is related to Gabriel's p138. I believe Sokwe commented on the 8-fold variant of Jason's p33, which is different in that it is a variant of a hassler (you can support one copy of the same engine by sparkers or catalysts that are stable without the engine).
I think your comment agrees with my understanding -- since nothing can interact with an empty pattern, it is impossible for an "empty support" to interact with "hassled" reaction.
Apart from that, I made an edit because it's a wiki, and it's easier to make a specific edit (which can be reviewed by others), rather than discuss it beforehand. I looked through all hassler pages, and Gabriel's p138 is the only example of an oscilator without external supports I found. Confocal (talk) 16:49, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't really have a problem with you making an edit, my issue is mostly with the justification you gave. It feels like you're trying to make it seem like there's some sort of consensus when there isn't. --Galoomba (talk) 16:52, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I think there might be already some sort of partial consensus in that discussion, even though it's likely to take some time to understand what it is. Confocal (talk) 17:01, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

That's a rather shaky argument to make. Specifically regarding the p138, Sokwe quite explicitly stated his belief that oscillators which involve several copies of an active region hassling themselves does count as a hassler, regardless of whether the active region can be hassled with external supports or not. Your justification of why you consider the 8-fold p33 to be "more of" a hassler than the p138 is not Sokwe's justification of any part of his own opinion. (To be clear, I don't believe you think the 8-fold p33 is a hassler while the p138 isn't.) Three other editors have disagreed with you on the p138 in particular, bringing it to what should be a clear 4:1 consensus. Or 5:1 if you count glider_rider (Special:Contributions/Turingcomplete30). The comment by Galoomba you reference is being taken out of context - Galoomba was disagreeing with your interpretation of oscillators like the aforementioned as active patterns being hassled by null supports, rather active patterns hassled by and hassling active patterns, and not agreeing with your stance on why said oscillators are too unlike other hasslers.

It's fine for you to have your opinions that may or not conflict with others', but please don't go around misconstruing their points as agreeing with your own. Bubblegum (talk) 01:04, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

It's perfectly possible that I misunderstood comments from others -- sorry if that's the case. I think the best way to make sure would be if they clarified their opinions themselves, should they choose to do so.
(For the record: I don't consider either the 8-fold p33 or the p138 as a hassler. But in the p33 case, an argument using existence of variants with p1/p3 supports could convince me that it's convenient to view the p33 as a hassler.) Confocal (talk) 01:45, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Curiously, mniemiec's database lists the standard p33 as "Two boats and two tubs eating two things" and the 8-fold one as "Eight pairs of things stablizing each other", instead of using the term "hassling" like he usually does outside of variants of "eater eating eater", "x and longhook eating tub" and "eater and block eating loaf with tail". I'm hesitating to say whether this actually means anything, given how at least the standard p33 is generally considered a hassler of a pair of things. Bubblegum (talk) 08:07, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

In addition to this: the page was created recently and may not follow existing usage of terms. I think there is no consensus to use "hassler" for oscillators without external catalysts/sparkers. Confocal (talk) 14:39, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

In response to this and your comment on the page history "...I'm not aware of any previous mentions of this p138 where it was described as a hassler.":

LifeWiki isn't Wikipedia. LW functions as if it and its associated discussion forums and Discord server comprise the entire active community, a combined primary/secondary source, unlike WP which treats itself as a tertiary source which indexes other sources. You don't need to find a specific prior reference for X object being called a Y if there is a definition of Y that by consensus includes X, even if the consensus is formed during the discussion resulting from the disagreement over if X is or is not a Y. Bubblegum (talk) 01:04, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, LifeWiki is not Wikipedia (but there are caveats). Still, it would help if there were previous mentions. In this case, I think absence of "hassler" in previous discussions of Gabriel's p138 could mean that basically no one viewed that oscillator as a hassler before, maybe because it is sufficiently different from the general notion "hassler". Confocal (talk) 01:45, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Another possibility could be that nobody really felt the need to bring up the fact of the p138 being a hassler, since it has a name that doesn't involve the sub-patterns it's comprised of (which IIRC went most of its history generally unnamed, aside from "other octomino" or W or convenience descriptors like that), and it being or not being a hassler isn't relevant to what it's used or brought up for (being the smallest p138, a sparker, &c). Bubblegum (talk) 08:07, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

While the term "hassler" has been in use since 1992 and possibly earlier, the tendency to explicitly call oscillators "hasslers" seems to be somewhat recent (with a few exceptions like toad, bi-block, pre-pulsar, and traffic light hasslers). For example, I never called my p88 oscillator a hassler, nor seemingly did anyone else. That doesn't mean people thought it wasn't a hassler, as it clearly is a hassler by everyone's standards. Also, I personally view Gabriel's p138 as a hassler, where the octomino IIs hassle each other.

I searched through the LifeCA archives for "hassler" and found some old emails that might be of interest.

• First is an email from 13 Dec 1994 where Allan Wechsler asks what a hassler is:

Let me _guess_ what's going on, and someone can correct me.

A "hassler"-type oscillator has two parts, a "victim", and the actual
"hassler".

The victim is usually a classical oscillator, like a PD or a pulsar.

The hassler is sometimes static, sometimes an oscillator.

When the hassler interacts with the victim, the victim is "warped"
into another phase of the same oscillator.

Dean Hickerson responds with some clarifications ("pulsar hasslers" are really pre-pulsar hasslers, "victim" can be moved or reoriented [such as toad hasslers] rather than warped) but he doesn't fundamentally contradict Wechsler's idea that a hassler has a "victim" and a "hassler" part. Keep in mind, however, that at the time I think the only known pattern that could have been considered a "self-supporting hassler" was a queen bee loop. Since such "self-supporting hasslers" were nonexistent, they probably weren't factored into people's definition of "hassler".

• The second email is from 1997 and is also from Wechsler. It was the first example I could find of the mention of a pattern where two objects hassled each other. In this case it was in a pattern in Day & Night where two p16 rotating R-pentominos hassle each other down to p14:

Two spinners hassle each other, accelerating their native period from
16 to 14.  A detailed analysis might be rewarding, since multiple
spinners might be coupled in this way to yield a variety of periods.


 . . . . o . .
 . . . . o o o
 . . . . . o .
 . o . . . . .
 o o . . . . .
 o . . . . . .
 o . . . . . .

In this case, the "victims" are also the "hasslers", so it might support the idea that Gabriel's p138 could also be considered a hassler.

With regard to this particular case, I think the note on Gabriel's p138 mentioning this discussion can be left in place, but the [citation needed] tag should be removed. I don't think a citation would resolve this issue, as there is no authority on what a "hassler" is. The existence of this discussion is enough of a citation that at least several members of the community consider it a hassler. ~Sokwe 09:01, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Here are some more possibly relevant old emails, since I forgot to search for "hassling" along with "hassle":

• From Allan Wechsler, 14 Dec 1994:

Could a PD hassle another PD?  If so, you could imagine a cycle of 16
of them, each one step out of phase with the next except for one pair,
the one that is about to hassle.  This would form an oscillator with
period something like 16*14 = 224.

This again supports the idea of mutually hassling objects where the "victims" are also the "hasslers".

• From Mark Niemiec, 16 Feb 1995:

Here is part of a P36 (mod 9) beehive-hassling agar:

..................................O........
.......O........................OO.OO......
.....OO.OO.................................
.....................OO.OO......OO.OO......
.....OO.OO.................................
.....................OO.OO.................
..................O....O...................
................OO.OO......................
................................OO.OO......
.....OO.OO......OO.OO......................
................................OO.OO......
.....OO.OO...................O....O........
..O....O...................OO.OO...........
OO.OO......................................
................OO.OO......OO.OO...........
OO.OO......................................
................OO.OO...................O..
.............O....O...................OO.OO
...........OO.OO...........................
...........................OO.OO......OO.OO
OO.OO......OO.OO...........................
...........................OO.OO...........
OO.OO...................O....O.............
..O...................OO.OO................

In this case, pre beehives are hassling each other, although this is an agar, not a finite oscillator.

~Sokwe 09:19, 7 August 2023 (UTC)