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[GavJ]

As for the graphs, learning curve is not how much you need to learn, it is how hard it is to learn and progress.

1) No, that's not "what it is." Dunno why everybody keeps claiming that whatever their axis of the moment is must be "THE" true definition. A cursory trip to even just wikipedia will show otherwise. What it actually is is "How much you have learned so far," like I said in the OP.  If you want to go ahead and entertain alternative possible axes one could draw, then okay, that's interesting. But you can't just arbitrarily go claiming that it is the one right way every time. Nor does colloquial usage have any bearing on this point, because the phrase "steep learning curve" does not itself imply ANY particular axis. So instead it just boils down to "random dude who isn't citing anything on the DF forums vs. every journal article studying the effect, wikipedia, other encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc."

2) But okay, let's evaluate your alternative suggestion: does it explain a steep curve?
I suggest no, it does not. The content is in fact hardest to learn precisely at the moment you have the least context in the game. I.e. at the start. So it would simply start at maximum height. There would be no ramp. It would be as high as it gets, then shallowly taper off as it gets very gradually and slowly easier to learn the next thing, the more you know about the game in general to draw from.

((Nerd cred? Seriously?))

"Cred" is short for credentials or credibility. And using graphs accurately (and thus credibly) is pretty inherently nerdy. So it seems pretty objectively descriptive to me. What's your problem with the term?

There's no logical reason to switch meanings that everyone understands back to their "correct" usage, just semantics

For VERBAL use, no, there is no reason to switch. Which is why I said from my very first post that you SHOULDN'T try to actually switch terms colloquially. Instead, if you want to be accurate, you can just ignore and avoid the phrase entirely. It's pretty cliche anyway, not much of a loss.

For GRAPHING use, though, you're wrong. There IS an overwhelming logical reason to do it the right way: Because if you do, your graph will be an actual graph that makes sense and follows math conventions, and if you don't, you will have a random mess of nonsensical lines and make yourself look like a moron, because even somebody who knows nothing about colloquialisms OR about psychology would still be able to see your internal graphical inconsistencies.

((Who even says "whom" anyway?))

1) I didn't actually write "whom" in the quote you posted...
2) Answering your question anyway, though, "who" is grammatically incorrect after a preposition. So people who use "whom" are people who use prepositions and then want to refer to people...?

Yet these graphs you are talking about are also using the colloquial meaning. They're drawn to be funny

Internally inconsistent logic and spaghetti graphs make whatever might have been funny about it less funny. Maybe that's just me...
But then again, I'm pretty sure it's NOT just me, because if you look at XKCD (who manages to be quite funny AND rigorously mathematically accurate AND colloquially savvy), and then look at these random bloggers, which one more popular? The one that is still funny, but yet communicates that humor with logical integrity.

It was time for Science! to give a conclusion

Hah, nice. Although clearly unfair, since you gave me vastly inferior, ecru-skinned warriors!

@ Talvieno:
I agree this is a consistent, workable graph. It seems to be basically the same one that one dude described earlier that I agreed with. But it's not one that any actual bloggers or comic artists have used. If they DID use that, I would be okay with it. But you really do need to specify (as you do) that it's "raw survival" in particular that is the requirement. As in, if you sit there and don't hit any buttons, you are still "winning" for the entire first season.  Which seems a little odd/unintuitive, but whatever. It is at least internally consistent.

When the great majority of people say "a steep learning curve", they mean "lots to learn in order to play", making the commonly used definition correct.

Yes, sure, perhaps when they SAY it. But not when they graph it, and their own graph contradicts itself. Popularity can't save you from incorrectness then. See the distinction?

[Putnam]

Whom is the object form, so the preposition thing is more coincidence than rule.

[GavJ]

Since I brought it up and picked on others for not providing actual citations to anything:

Merriam Webster
1
:  a curve plotting performance against practice; especially :  one graphing decline in unit costs with cumulative output (Note from GavJ: This would just be the also shallow but in the other direction graph I posted I think on page 1)
2
:  the course of progress made in learning something

American Heritage
A graph that depicts rate of learning, especially a graph of progress in the mastery of a skill against the time required for such mastery.

^
Note that all three definitions are consistent with DF having a shallow curve. Progress and performance are equivalent to amount learned, practically, since these are the only ways to measure amount learned in people. American Heritage reasonably uses the two almost interchangeably in the same definition.
Also note that neither dictionary mentions any colloquial reverse usage as popular enough to warrant official recognition (and usually those two are much quicker to do so than the OED, which I couldn't find a relevant entry for). I didn't leave any entries out.


And here's an absolute classic journal article http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Stroop/
(Yes, they still do it the same way in 2014 too, but those aren't classics yet!)




Also worth considering:
Amount learned can be measured very easily by testing knowledge at intervals. This is essentially what every test you've ever taken in school was doing. Thus it can be plotted easily and meaningfully with actual data. By contrast, it is NOT clear how almost any of the other axes mentioned in this thread could actually be plotted with real data. Which would restrict them to purely anecdotal armchair curves...

[Il Palazzo]

And here's an absolute classic journal article http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Stroop/
(Yes, they still do it the same way in 2014 too, but those aren't classics yet!)

No, it's not the same in 2014. Prior to about 1970s the technical meaning from the field of psychology was the only one ever used. Today, there's also the colloquial meaning, pretty much opposite to the original one.
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/a-steep-learning-curve-for-downton-abbey/

Language evolves, yo. There's no point arguing with it. Rather, acknowledge the changes and be mindful of the context a word is used in.

There are other words like that. 'Theory' means something diametrally different in colloquial speech than in scientific context.
It's all about communication and speaking the same language as your interlocutors. You can go on and be stubborn to the fault and end up being misunderstood(and then get angry AT OTHERS), or fire off a brain cell or two to judge which meaning is required.

[expwnent]

Language evolves, yo. There's no point arguing with it. Rather, acknowledge the changes and be mindful of the context a word is used in.

I generally agree with you but this reasoning doesn't work. It's like saying that water flows, and rivers go wherever they go, so there's no point in ever building a bridge or digging a canal or making a dam. Sometimes language evolves in stupid ways and should be intelligently resisted. I do not think this is one of those times.

[Il Palazzo]

Ah, you're one of them prescriptivist fellers. I can appreciate the sentiment, but am opposed to placing artificial constraints on language evolution.

[GavJ]

By "they do it the same way in 2014" I meant "psychologists do it the same way in 2014." Was simply addressing the oldness of the article and explaining that the age is not really relevant. Sorry if that was unclear.

or fire off a brain cell or two to judge which meaning is required.

I'd love to, but when somebody actually goes and draws a graph, and the slope fits the colloquial usage, but the axes fit the research usage... pray tell, which meaning "is required?" No amount of brain cells lets me choose one consistent meaning when there are two different contradictory ones in front of me.

The problem, as I've said half a dozen times now, is that the graphs are internally inconsistent.  Not that they use one of two potentially valid meanings. A graph that uses two DIFFERENT meanings in the same graph and thus disagrees with itself is simply wrong, no matter what context you approach it from. 

Either that, or they mutilate the graphs into positions that do not follow the most basic of graphing conventions, in an attempt to make everything line up. Which is equally wrong, though for different reasons. There is no research OR colloquial context, for instance, where dependent variables are placed on Y axes.



In short: I am fully agreeing with you now that verbally, you can use it either way, and the listener has to just figure out what you mean. That's not the issue here. The issue is graphs, which I didn't make clear enough at first but by now should be crystal. That's what, in actuality, inspired the thread.

[Talvieno]

Dictionaries are not authorities over reality. They are simply lists of words with their officially defined meanings. Just because a definition is officially defined does not make it accurate. Common consensus is the most accurate method to discern a word's meaning - what do you think we did before we had dictionaries, after all? How else would new words and phrases such as "email" and "cell phone" appear in our language? (and "email" actually meant something entirely different before it came to mean "electronic mail", just so you know - it had a different definition in the dictionary.)

We understand what you're saying. We also understand that saying it has a steep learning curve is more technically correct than saying it has a shallow curve, because the meaning is more commonly accepted, because of terminology, and because of semiotics. Helpful link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

Languages evolve over time, and this is a good example of it. In a hundred years, all your posted definitions may even reverse. It may not. We have no way of knowing, but even your Wikipedia article mentions that the curve is reversed in this one instance. If it was something else, you would be correct, but the phrase "steep learning curve" is very much intended to mean that the activity is difficult to learn: "The familiar expression "a steep learning curve" is intended to mean that the activity is difficult to learn"

Also, about your dismissal of my graphs due to my poor art skills - if I was a comic artist, would you be more likely to trust my judgement? If you really require citations, though, I could point you to an absurd number of articles that state that it popularly means "difficult to learn". I could also point you to a number of articles that tell you that the popularly accepted meaning comes to be the true meaning over time. I won't, though... I don't think that you're in this for the debate, and I don't think I could possibly change your mind.

All that said, this was interesting material, and it's interesting to know that "steep learning curve" is technically incorrect as it is commonly used - a neat bit of trivia... but it won't stop me from using it, and language - communication - isn't about being correct. It's about getting your point across efficiently.

edit:
ninja'd four times. some of this may be irrelevant now.

[scriver]

The problem, as I've said half a dozen times now, is that the graphs are internally inconsistent.  Not that they use one of two potentially valid meanings. A graph that uses two DIFFERENT meanings in the same graph and thus disagrees with itself is simply wrong, no matter what context you approach it from. 

Either that, or they mutilate the graphs into positions that do not follow the most basic of graphing conventions, in an attempt to make everything line up. Which is equally wrong, though for different reasons. There is no research OR colloquial context, for instance, where dependent variables are placed on Y axes.

And we are saying that this is not an issue. It's a joke. People get the joke. They smile to themselves. They move on. The chart has made the point it's supposed to do. The chart is not internally inconsistent with society. That's all that matter.

In short: I am fully agreeing with you now that verbally, you can use it either way, and the listener has to just figure out what you mean. That's not the issue here. The issue is graphs, which I didn't make clear enough at first but by now should be crystal. That's what, in actuality, inspired the thread.

In one example, it's being used in spoken communication. In the other, it's being used in informal internet "spoken" communication. There's no point in accepting one of those as okay but not the other. They are the same things in different shape.

[Il Palazzo]

"...and they all agreed people sometimes draw and say silly things, but as long as the message is clear there's nary a point to make a fuss, or much they could do about it anyway.
And the world was the same dreary boring place again, and they all continued living in quiet desperation, with average life expentancy typical of the region they inhabited.
The end."

[GavJ]

And we are saying that this is not an issue. It's a joke. People get the joke. They smile to themselves. They move on.

...and then they don't come back to that blog again, nearly as often as they come back to blogs that are able to provide jokes AND internal consistency. Such as XKCD.

So it is a problem.  Maybe my point ultimately boils down only to some offhanded advice for bloggers, though. Okay *Shrug* Bloggers, consider yourselves advised, and I'm happy to drop it there.

[forsaken1111]

This is an interesting thread in which GavJ claims to be right simply because everyone else is 'doing it wrong'.

I have enjoyed reading this thread. It made me chuckle.

[Henny]

Insisting on always using the scientific meaning of terms can have rather unsettling consequences...

A related matter is the notion that we eat low entropy food and produce high entropy waste. In this context we associate “usefulness” with entropy—or lack thereof. We can eat a useful burrito, but cannot derive sustenance by eating our solid waste. In a direct comparison, the solid waste (out of which our bodies remove as much water as possible) has lower thermodynamic entropy than the same mass of burrito—since the latter has more water content. Sorry to be gross here, but this makes the comparisons personally relevant. Sure, the system entropy increased in the process of digesting food (e.g., via respirated gases). But the measure of thermodynamic entropy for a “thing” is not a measure of its usefulness.

[Playergamer]

Can we please just stop this argument? Once again, it does not matter if the graph is actually correct, as long as the interpretation from the person looking at it is correct.

((First of all, just saying nerd cred makes me want to stab you over the internet. Second, the whom thing was an example of semantics.))

[GavJ]

Insisting on always using the scientific meaning of terms can have rather unsettling consequences...

A related matter is the notion that we eat low entropy food and produce high entropy waste. In this context we associate “usefulness” with entropy—or lack thereof. We can eat a useful burrito, but cannot derive sustenance by eating our solid waste. In a direct comparison, the solid waste (out of which our bodies remove as much water as possible) has lower thermodynamic entropy than the same mass of burrito—since the latter has more water content. Sorry to be gross here, but this makes the comparisons personally relevant. Sure, the system entropy increased in the process of digesting food (e.g., via respirated gases). But the measure of thermodynamic entropy for a “thing” is not a measure of its usefulness.

This is not in any way an example of being "too insistent on scientific terminology." It is in fact a story of precisely the opposite reality: not being precise ENOUGH about scientific terminology, such that the people are confusing a law about one specific subset of entropy (the thermodynamic kind) with the entire category of all entropy, due to not paying attention to the fact that the terms are different...

The scientific terms themselves are plenty precise if used correctly. One has an adverb in front of it (thermodynamic entropy), the other doesn't (just all entropy) for the exact reason that they are not the same thing, and that this allows you to distinguish whether somebody is only talking about heats or about order in a generic sense.

Somebody ignoring that is making a mistake of being too IM-precise, not the other way around.

I would still very much claim that organisms in general take in low entropy input and leave a wake of high entropy waste. And i mean exactly what I say when i say that: entropy. Not specifically thermodynamic entropy. All entropy. And I'm not citing the 2nd law of thermodynamics in conjunction (if you do, then yes you're making a mistake. Again of IN-sufficient understanding of exact terms!). Nor am I claiming this theory is a law. It's just a theory.