Hello.

@PeterTamaroff hi (:

@RebeccaChernoff My clock says 9:58 here.

Good evening

allo

It's time! It's time! (:

Hi everyone!

We're missing a few fellows. Should we simply begin?

yup (:

Welcome to the Math SE Town Hall Chat

We're just here to get to know the candidates and ask questions regarding the candidates views on moderation that may help in voting.

A few notes about the format:

The format is open, feel free to ask your question(s) unprompted, however please be mindful of whether or not candidates have answered the previous questions so that they don't get behind and start missing questions. Other than that, feel free to jump in.

Candidates, please use the reply feature so that questions and their answers are linked together. (Hover your mouse over the left of the message, click the down arrow, click reply)

When a question is asked, I'll star it - please star it yourself also to help! Please save stars for the questions so that candidates can refer to the star list to make sure they haven't missed a question.

We will be creating a digest version of the town hall chat after it is completed. This digest will take the form of a question on meta, containing all the questions asked as well as their answers for easier reading.

There's a system message up on the site, so we may get some stragglers joining us.

With that, I think I've got all my initial messages, so I open the floor to y'all. Who has a question to start us off? (:

I am here as a candidate!

Candidates: Do you believe that promoting math.SE is part of a moderator's duty? If so, how would you go about doing so?

I don't believe it is a mods duty, but if one feels the site is useful and one can do something to improve it and raise more awareness of its great uses, then one should do so.

oh right, I forgot to list the candidates

Promoting the site is duty of everybody who likes the site! And it is been done well we have high quality member here!

Any normal user that is slightly passionate about MSE should do so.

The candidates I see here are: @mixedmath, @PeterTamaroff, @EricNaslund, @chessmath, @BillDubuque, and @robjohn

Will there ever be a consensus on homework? I got a down-vote here (math.stackexchange.com/questions/142008/…) for providing the complete answer. I have become indifferent to homework questions since there seems to be no consensus.

Is it possible that moderation might interfere with your day to day activities? Your own math, for example?

If the mods agree that posting solutions is allowed, kindly announce this on meta? Similarly, if the mods agree that posting complete solution to homework is not allowed, how will the user providing the full solution be penalized?

@EricGregor I honestly hope it will not. I am a freshman in college, so the demand is not very extreme. I can personally cope with my academic duties, so I feel no problem will arise.

hehe let's give the candidates a chance to answer the questions (:

@AlexBecker Do I believe that promoting MSE is a part of a moderator's duties? I think that's an interesting question. Whether or not it is a responsibility of a moderator (of which I'm uncertain), I think that in general we should all try to bring people here. I think that most who know me (in real life) know that I promote MSE, and I bring it up on my blog from time to time.

@Marvis If the user asked not to provide a full answer, then the downvote is called for. Otherwise, I believe is under the answerer's criteria wether to provide a full answer or not. One can help with homework in many ways. Maybe some users feel you're trying to get some rep out of the OP by providing it, but I see no harm. I repeat, if the OP was explicit, then I think it is not correct to do so, but it is under each of our criteria to provide a full answer or not.

@EricGregor It certainly will not interfere in my affairs, my fb activities will interfere more!

@Marvis The penalization, if it should happen, has to be from the community itself. Just as when one down votes an answer that is not useful, wrong, misleading, confusing or whatever quality standard it is not meeting.

@Marvis I doubt there will be any consensus on homework. My view on such contentious matters is to try to make both sides aware of all the issues in hope that they will respect each others viewpoints, so that we can avoid friction on the main site.

@PeterTamaroff It really doesn't make sense to me unless there is a firm policy. I can also interpret that the user does not want a hint since the user does not mention anything in the question.

@Marvis Then I think users are free to interpret his needs.

@BillDubuque How would you go about doing this, specifically?

@AntonioVargas Mariano's approach was quite good. I think that is what Bill is talkign about.

About downvotes I don't like them at all! Normally this stick cannot be used by new users unless they are mortarboards! But the in the question should be explicit that he wants only a hint!

@Marvis I do not think if I were to become a moderator tomorrow, my voice or opinion would be any more important than it was yesterday. What I mean is that having a new pair of moderators should not suddenly create a homework policy. In all likelihood, there will be the same sort of differing viewpoint about homework tomorrow as there is today.

@AntonioVargas By encouraging folks to join meta discussions on these topics. I think many folks aren't aware of all the complex factors that motivate the various positions held. Seeing such, they might be more respectful of differing viewpoints.

@chessmath I think we should avoid these: !

@EricGregor Is it possible that moderating might interfere with my math research? It is possible. I am finishing my first year of grad school, and I'm just now beginning to consider my own research. I'm uncertain of how much of a time drain that will be. But I'd be surprised if it took more time than I spent this year - I feel that I did an inordinate amount of math in the last year. So I think my last year of participation is a good indicator of what my future level of participation will be

... However, to say how I feel about it: I think that what's most important is that we respect each other. Thus if someone carefully crafts an answer that guides the user to the answer, I would consider it impolite for another user to later craft a complete answer. But were someone to flag it - I would not delete it. I might comment - but deletion is too far.

Maybe a present moderator can chime in, but my understanding is that the mod tools themselves wouldn't allow you to stop people from downvoting every once and a while "for the wrong reasons".

@BillDubuque The problem I see with that is it only addresses the answering side of homework questions. I find it unlikely that many of the users who pose "problematic" (no work shown, imperative, etc.) HW questions will be active on meta at all.

please make sure to use the reply button on messages so that they are linked together (:

Peter the exclamation point is like a final point just a bad mania! ;)

@AlexBecker I have rallied many folks from sci.math to join MSE. I think it is crucial to fill gaps in knowledge here, so that we have at least a handful of experts in all of the major fields of math.

@BillDubuque I agree. But I hope that doesn't discourage non-experts to contribute.

@AlexBecker True, but with things like easily located (polite!) standard meta comments, these folks can help to teach questioners how to pose better questions

@DylanMoreland From my experiences moderating Phil.SE, this is accurate. There is some sort of black box mechanic in the system that sometimes detects suspicious voting patterns and (I think) removed the votes. I think.

@BillDubuque experts will come since we have quality and a friendly place.

hi @robjohn

hello I am a new guy, nice to see you!!

Sorry I'm a bit late.

@BillDubuque Hopefully not Archimedes Plutonium.

@chessmath I hope so. I do worry though that experts might be scared off by some of the meta level issues if we don't try to handle them more smoothly.

Are there any issues on which the candidates feel they would like to change the status quo? To what extent do you consider yourselves "progressives"?

@robjohn no worries. just jump in with the questions being asked now, and then afterwards you can go back and answer the previous questions (: (just check out the very beginning to see the guidelines and such)

@RebeccaChernoff will do

I have to answer the phone. Excuse me.

the other candidates can continue to answer of course (;

@EricGregor With respect to 'changing the status quo,' I do not believe that moderators have any special say in that respect. The SE model is that of self-governance, and in the Theory of Moderation there is a nice line: "Moderators are human exception handlers." In other words, I will be no more proactive than I was before, and I think that all users should feel that they have a role in the future of the community.

@mixedmath i didn't necessarily mean "as moderator"

I'm back. Let me get to that @EricGregor

@EricGregor I think that math.SE is very nice as it stands. However, I am always open to listen to ways to improve. If something seems like a good idea, I will promote it to the other mods.

i'm asking about how you want MSE to evolve or not, etc

@mixedmath In fact, I think we should encourage users to play a greater role by participating more in meta. Often times it is difficult to infer what the consensus is on matters because too few folks participate on meta.

@EricGregor I will participate in new proposals and ideas more actively as a moderator. However, I have proposed new ideas which haven't been really welcomed by the community. I think one should not force a change, but let it happen softly.

@EricGregor That's very true. I'm sorry. I would say that I am not particularly 'progressive.' I like how the site currently runs, and I like how the community seems willing to participate on meta to address concerns. But if I were to do one thing, it would be to encourage more people to think they have a role in the community. Many decisions here are guided by the same 10-12 people here.

@PeterTamaroff i'm asking about those ideas you favor...

But I don't know how I would do that. I think it's a very good question.

I see that I am agreeing with Bill here -

@EricGregor They are rather bureaucratic: see this

Eric, does that answer your question?

@EricGregor one thing I would like to see is better support of MathJax.

yes @mixedmath

@mixedmath That is rather my thought on the meta participation. We need more people participating. I think I have to participate more.

@EricGregor You've touched on a key point: evolution. In some sense we are stagnant now as far as attracting further experts. The site needs a healthy balance of students and teachers. We need more teachers. To attract them we will need to eliminate some of the friction over the contentious issues. It can be done, but it will require careful thought.

any tentative ideas in that direction @BillDubuque?

@PeterTamaroff The problem is that the system doesn't help participate in meta. Mainly because of the downvotes in polemic opinions !

Candidates, what authority (moral or otherwise) does/should a moderator have over other users?

@EricGregor: Excellent question. If I may narrow its focus somewhat, if there's any aspect of how the current moderators are doing things that a candidate feels should change, it'd be good to discuss that now - it's of course very important for the moderator team to be cohesive and synergetic.

@AntonioVargas @Antonio: I'm sorry - what do you mean about moral authority over other users?

@chessmath Well, that is one issue. People tend to down vote before discussing.

@mixedmath Doe a mod have the authority to say what is "the right thing to do"?

I think we should have somewhere specific to discuss theses questions without voting or downvoting or upvoting.

@AntonioVargas I think mods only really have the authority to identify what the 'wrong things to do' are - in the sense that only bad behavior should be 'moderated.' However, in meta discussions and other forms of communication, mods should try to guide the community to behave properly. But decisions as to what is and isn't proper should be community wide, not moderator-thin

@BillDubuque This is a question from a student to users that are either teaching or had a teaching career. How do you feel in the atmosphere of math.SE? Is it sometimes immature or impersonal? Has anything made you reconsider your participation on the site?

@BillDubuque @BillDubuque and others contesting for mods: To attract good teachers and experts, the overall standard of the site must improve, which in-turn means that quality of the questions posed should improve and homework question be discouraged. Do you believe that questions should filtered more and questions that are too elementary must be discouraged? Your thoughts?

@PeterTamaroff yes, yes, yes. But the problem is not the players but the game here.

@chessmath I can't get anything from that comment. What do you mean?

@AntonioVargas I think that moderators should, to a degree, try to lead by example, I have tried to behave to others here in a decent manner.

@PeterTamaroff The system encourages a competitive ambiance here instead of cooperating environment !

@mixedmath Thank you. Could you clarify what you mean by "mods should try to guide the community to behave properly"?

Just wondering if any of the candidates have a super pack.

@AntonioVargas as for authority, don't like to hold authority over others unless really needed (harassment, etc)

@PeterTamaroff Chessmath is using some slang.

@chessmath How so? I can recall more cooperative users than competitive. What I do see is criticism to answers/questions, which is natural in a scientific atmosphere.

@mixedmath What do you mean proper behavior?

@Marvis On the one hand, I believe that questions should be asked in the place where it will receive the best answer. To that end, I see two major players in the math community: MO and MSE. I would be very, very reluctant to preventing any question from being asked here for being too basic. I don't really want to exclude anyone. Whether or not this will eventually lead to a degradation of the average question is unclear to me at the moment. If so, then perhaps change will be necessary.

But I don't see that problem yet.

@MaoYiyi super pack?

@Marvis Never discourage homework, maths is maths. If we had not homework the reason of the site would be less effective.

@PeterTamaroff I think chessmath may be referring to the "race for reputation" that some users have perceived others engaging in.

@robjohn you are running for office, hehe.

Just a reminder: just star questions to the candidates, not their answers.

@AntonioVargas thanks (:

@Marvis On the other hand, I am uncertain about how to actually attract more experts to the site. To be honest, many of of our experts are here almost exclusively answering questions rather than asking many, and I think it takes a special sort of person to do this. As long as there are questions of interest, I suppose they will stay. But attracting more? I'm very uncertain.

@Marvis By no means. Maths should be encouraged at any level. And most people dealing with basic arithmetic or geometry, I think, will not really choose this site to ask. The cases are very few and the answers are simple.

@MaoYiyi Yeah but generally we have more answers competing than a attempt to really cooperate! The users only think that is important a complete answer what will show that you know, but a discussion may help more.

I would like to see something to protect a new user, that asked a poor question the first time. Not everyone that is going to come to MSE is going to be a college student with knowledge of how to ask a proper question. IE. they ask a question and it gets harshly downvoted and now they don't have the points to do anything.

@AlexBecker I see.

we've got about 15 minutes left, just fyi (:

@EricGregor there is always the chance of interference with a day to day activity. However, that is why there are multiple moderators; others can pick up the slack, and then I can pick up when they have other responsibilities.

@MaoYiyi That is true. We need to create a welcoming policy.

@chessmath yes, I would like discussion...not a flame war.

@AntonioVargas By "mods should try to guide the community" I mean that there are many times, such as when new users first post, that someone should try and tell them how things are usually done here. Formatting issues, refraining from the use of imperative, NO ALL CAPS, etc. In responding to these in a good way, mods can set a good example for others.

I notice that Zev responds very well to first time users, for example. And I'd like to emulate that aspect of his moderation style.

@MaoYiyi I am talking about a cooperating discussion.

@mixedmath yes a newbie patrol.

@Maoyiyi: you asked me for a clarification very similar to Antonio. Did I answer your question?

@chessmath yes, that is one of the goals of here, is to expand and create a deep and quality cooperating discussion on the subject of math.

@chessmath Could you expand?

@chessmath you do understand that SE is not a discussion platform, right?

@mixedmath yes, I agree with what you said. Just hope that those that are very very smart at math, realize and understand that stupid users may not understand them.

I think the key to attracting experts is to have good questions. How would the candidates go about promoting good questions?

@Isaac Ofcourse, this is not IIRC, but having a list of comments talking about a problem is way cool.

@Marvis Homework is part of what goes on here. I think that hints should first be given to help provoke thought. If they show interest in working the problem, then more of the answer can be shown in an answer. After a time, say a week or so (to give the assignment to be due), a complete answer could be given for completeness of the site.

@PeterTamaroff Clear I get it but it is important to put the question in another perspective than answer/response.

@Isaac But that doesn't stop folks from having pseudo-discussions when trying to teach. As long as those are constructive, I think we should allow such (to a point). It will alllow us to attract more teachers.

@PeterTamaroff as for your question about teaching, I think its hit or miss. Questions about what "cool" problem to teach is ok, but not how to teach.

@chessmath Not really. If you want to discuss with another user, either you keep it short and nice, or you go get a room.

@AlexBecker I don't think it is necessarily part of what a moderator is supposed to do here, but I think it is good to promote the site where possible. I have pointed several people to the site that I think would benefit form the site or who would benefit the site.

@mixedmath The requirements for questions at philosophy.se are much higher than at math.se. Do you think that this simply mirrors the different communities of philosophers and mathematicians, or do you think that the standards for questions should be more comparable?

@MaoYiyi I think you misinterpreted my question.

@PeterTamaroff likely, my english is not great.

@AlexBecker This is a very good question. And I don't think it's at all easy to answer. I tend to read and upvote the questions that pique my interest, as I hope that most users do. There is an unfortunate problem here that more basic questions and answers sometimes get more votes simply because more people understand them. I don't know a good response to this problem, but I admit that it exists.

This is a question from a student to users that are either teaching or had a teaching career. How do you feel in the atmosphere of math.SE? Is it sometimes immature or impersonal? Has anything made you reconsider your participation on the site?

Interestingly enough, we can share questions and answers in Facebook and Twitter, but I don't see how my friends will have the slight interest in them.

@AlexBecker One possibility is to attempt to rally the community to crowdsource improvement of poor questions ,so that there are many good examples to be seen. If all of the front-page questions are well-motivated, then its likely that new users will follow the model.

@robjohn I think your attitude towards homework makes sense and in fact that is what I prefer. It would be great if that is made the policy and posted on the meta discouraging people from posting solutions. The problem I have is that there is no policy as of now and off and on I get down-voted for providing solutions when there is a no consensus.

5 minutes left, anyone have a final question as we finish things up?

@BillDubuque like a style sheet, of good/bad questions?

@MaoYiyi Not really. We edit poor quality questions. Polish them so they look neat and shiny.

In every math.SE election so far, the highest-rep users have been the winners. Is this a good thing? Is it a result of users voting based solely on rep?

@PeterTamaroff We should the different sections elementary and more advanced questions . It will help to promote not only this site but the mathematics itself.

@MaoYiyi The goal would be to attempt to keep the front page of questions to always be model examples. We have enough users to do that, if everyone helped a little. New users rarely read the FAQ, but they probably browse the front page.

@PeterTamaroff yes, that does help, but it might be good to have an example they can check before hand so you don't have so much work to do.

@AlexBecker promoting good questions and discouraging poor questions are both nice goals. Improving poor questions and deleting poor questions are things that anyone can do. As a moderator, I don't know if there is anything more one can do.

@PeterTamaroff maybe have a thing of best written question of the week.

@BillDubuque On that front, would you support the proposal for the community to have a math blog with good questions/answers and an attempt to cope with abstract duplicates and minor variants.

@MaoYiyi That is interesting. You can always choose the "votes" tab to get upvoted and downvoted answers. Maybe an interactive guide/tutorial/walkthrough will serve well.

@ThomasKlimpel It's true that the requirements for a question at PSE are very high. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that PSE is still working to find itself. MSE had a turbulent beginning as well, and there is still some evidence of this on the meta. But I think that as time goes on, and as PSE grows, the user base will develop a greater consensus on what questions should be around. That was very observant of you, and a good question.

... One thing that does surprise me here is that although many people comment when questions are direct copies of book problems here, such question statements sometimes receive many upvotes. It is not clear to me that such questions "show clear research effort"

as the candidates finish up with the questions:

Final thoughts from the candidates please?

@Isaac User with hight rep are generally experts and helpful people. But it is not all

the only thing is what it would be nice to have a better thing of showing you previous questions when you post a question...like a score sytem.

@mixedmath There should probably be more policing vs plagiarism. Copying book problems without credit is plagiarism.

@PeterTamaroff yes like have it part of the faq.

@RebeccaChernoff I think I said what I had to say, and if anything is missing, I'll try and address the concern the next time I can.

NO plagiarism.

I'd like to thank everyone for coming by and asking questions. I think that I can summarize the idea behind most of my answers very simply: I think a moderator should lead by example. Refrain from unilateral action whenever possible. Mods are not the voice of the community, but simply a single voice.

@robjohn Do you mean OPs that copy a problem verbatim?

And I very much like how the community currently runs

@PeterTamaroff yes. restating a problem in their own way with some added thought is fine. But attribution should be given where possible.

yes, this place is nice, but can be hard for newbies.

@robjohn I agree with you. On many things, in fact. I think you would make a great mod.

Well MSE is an opportunity to learn and teach mathematics around. It also a way to diffuse maths, but we have to keep in mind that are many different levels knowledge in all Sciences! So be friendlier and that will be an amazing community, better a brotherhood .

@robjohn I see. Maybe we can add some automatic message, specially when the questions are tagged homework.

@PeterTamaroff That would be a good way to present the guidelines.

If that is done, maybe there can be a pop-up "Remember to cite or give credit to the author of the problem you copied, if the problem is taken for a book or a booklet".

@robjohn Indeed!

chatter can continue in y'alls main chat room, but let's try and wrap up the official town hall q:

@PeterTamaroff I think that homework is probably one of the most asked kind of question from newbies.

@RebeccaChernoff Thanks :-)

@Rebecca: Thank you.

@robjohn Indeed. I will try to work on the HW tag in the weekend.

I'll be in the main chat if there is anything else you would like to ask me.

@mixedmath Same here.

Closing notes:

Pleasure talking.

thanks to everyone for participating, and of course best of luck to all the candidates!

Thanks to everyone for joining us. I'm happy to continue elsewhere.

That was a pleasure!

a digest of the town hall will be posted to meta sometime tomorrow

if you missed any questions (or even just couldn't attend), go ahead and answer now or in the morning

we'll get your responses into the digest that gets posted

@AlexBecker It's not of course a duty. But I've done it before for another SE as a regular user, so no doubt I'll do it when I am a moderator.

@Marvis I can't relate it to being a moderator. As it is, I'm against posting complete answer for homework in my current position. I think when someone doesn't bother thinking how to provide hints instead of full answer, it's something to think about. But I didn't find a policy or such s thing on homework questions.

I plan to bring some issue to meta on first days after being elected. It seems to me this is the community where people care a lot about how to react to an special case, so one has to be more careful.

@EricGregor Currently, I'm in a step in real life that I don't have something like "my own math". But yes, it would if I had. I need to learn more before starting to study masters. I'd say you must pay for what you learn.

@EricGregor Not on any special issues off top the of my head, but I need to discuss some special things with the other moderators, e.g. when to delete a question or an answer. And as I said, bringing up some special issues to meta seems necessary to me.

@RebeccaChernoff: Does it even make sense to answer the questions right now? I'm an hour late to the party, because I fell asleep. =|

Hello, BTW.

well we'll be posting a digest to meta, and the only way we can include your responses in that is if you reply here q:

Aha, thank you.

you can do it now or in a few hours or whatever.

it doesn't have to be right this second.

where to goto vote.

but yeah, it's understood that for an international community, not everyone will be able to attend, and we accommodate that.

math.stackexchange.com/election

sorry, I was trying to make a joke but I didn't type everything correctly. my mistake.

@AntonioVargas I don't think so. I read somewhere that moderators are human exception handlers. That is, the difference between them and other users is handling difficult situations where a normal user simply doesn't care and act as "what pleases me" but the moderator needs to act like "what's the best for the benefit of the community".

So no, they don't have the authority, the fact that they're more experience than others to talk about the rules and what's the right thing according to the site policies is something else.

hey guys

@RebeccaChernoff I could not attend earlier as I had class

no worries (:

@RebeccaChernoff answer which questions?

click on that message and start reading from there

@MaoYiyi I think the way we treat them now is not that problematic. I thought about having a public comment to welcome them and warn them about FAQ rules and such things since I have seen posting that comment might to lead to some serious problems. But what I've seen was to post that comment and editing their questions to an acceptable form afterwards.

But we need to be careful, welcoming a new user shouldn't condone wrong behaviors. As it is, questions are being asked in a format which the whole community agree about, every new user needs to learn it. We should be careful about the quality of the site more than a user who comes, asks some questions and vanishes into the thin air.

I was always against the behaviors and thought which might make the site look like a forum, there's a huge difference between normal forums on the internet and a Q&A site.

@AlexBecker By upvoting them, posting them on personal stuff like G+ or FB if any, and bringing them up in a place like our chat room. But everything does not go as well as we expect.

I'm done!

@Isaac I'd admit the more rep a user has earned, the more the community trust him/her. (there are exceptions to every rule). But it's not all about rep. In my case, I once registered, took a look and left the site as I wasn't motivated enough. It's about a month that I am active here since I got accepted to my fav-institute and I know I'll study mathematics, not computer science.

That saying, I've earned about half of my rep during the last week, plus some important badges.

Also, I've seen many low-rep users being moderator on different SE sites.

Okay okay, now I'm really done with answering! Thanks for your attention!

hello people of the math town,