@zyx To streamline encountering one another: I'm in the Paris/Rome timezone.

@JonasTeuwen Would you like to have a discussion in a polite manner?

@skullpatrol Don't forget the on-topic part. :)

room topic changed to QA Policy Discussion: This room is instated to prevent extensive arguments in comments to recent proposals for quality assurance; one may discuss these proposals here, in a *polite manner. (no tags)*

@Lord_Farin I won't forget; if he won't ;-)

@Lord_Farin So much for the polite approach :D

i saw the link, will check here from time to time.

@zyx Good. I have to leave in a few minutes, but I'll be back in an hour or so. If that suits you, we can have a (hopefully constructive) discussion then.

i am going on- and off-line at unpredictable times, so better (for me anyway) to work asynchronously and just check the chat thread from time to time.

Fine. I don't expect throngs of people here, so it will probably be a feasible method.

Does chat starter (@Lord_Farin) receive notification when messages are posted to chat, or only when @ ping is used?

May I applaud you in your efforts to resolve the aforementioned arguments in a civilized matter. @Lord_Farin

@zyx I think that he only gets a notification if you ping him.

Some description of notifications is in the chat faq.

Hi

Hi

@zyx I only received the pings.

@skullpatrol Thank you. It is however sad that you feel the need to applaud; it should be natural to treat the ones with which one is in disagreement with the due respect.

Now, regarding the comment of zyx that instigated creation of this room. I replied to that because I felt the comment was purposefully misinterpreting the suggestion (which evolved from the initial suggestion that had the word "Ban" in it). Namely, the purpose of the suggestion is not "to discourage new users and muzzle potential answerers".(ctd)

Rather, it is to actually encourage new users to provide context, own work and own thoughts on their otherwise "bare" problem statements. Furthermore, this added context helps answerers to determine what level of answer is appropriate for the OP. These aims work together to provide an environment in which OPs get answers that are better suited to their actual problem, and as such, to increase the speed and aptitude of question handling.(ctd)

It is explicitly not the intention of the suggestion that any question closures resulting from it be closed forever. I must admit that the initial phrasing of the suggestion could easily be read like this. MathGems' comment was an objection to this reading of the suggestion. Indeed, I too believe that this would hurt the Q&A platform MSE.(ctd)

But the only way that question would remain closed under this policy is if the OP is not interested enough to provide the required information. It is my strong that such OPs are not worthy of the precious (due to the high volume of questions on MSE) time of answerers. To disqualify this policy (whose goal is ultimately to make providing what an OP needs somewhat easier) as "[...] restrictive or authoritarian tendencies presented as 'democracy'" is not appropriate.(ctd)

This qualification is unnecessarily filled with emotion and a resentment against the suggested policy. I also consider the way it was phrased possibly offensive to the (as of this writing) approximate 6:1 voting majority in favour of the suggestion. It should be added that your comment was likely the one that made the balance tip; I may have been guilty of just piling up all the similar comments (most of them by other users) on Qiaochu's thread with it and taking that out on said comment.

. (A new paragraph on something else begins here. @zyx)

Another reason for creating this room is that, in reading the comments and remarks on both QA proposals, I got the strong impression that there were two sides that in some fundamental way weren't listening, no stronger, weren't willing to listen, to what precisely the other side has to say. Due to the limitation on message length in comments, it's hard to put in the necessary nuances I'm sure are present in the views of both "camps".(ctd)

I hope that this room will bring a small contribution to both sides honestly listening to each other, acknowledging the nuances present in both viewpoints, so as to hopefully come together and provide a profitable new policy that MSE can benefit from. All responses duly welcomed.

. (Apologies for the daunting wall of text. I didn't want to compromise on clarity.)

(Erratum: I intended to write "It is my strong opinion that [...]" in the fourth block.)

Internet has made sure that people can make their voices heard. This ensures that everyone can ask questions on the side in whatever manner they want. The problem with allowing that and trying to correct them is, "It is a very big drain on the people's limited resources. My solution is, instead of correcting the people at every step, we can select some bad questions at random and then show the complete edit history of that question to the new user along with the comments/edit and their ....

explanations that the more advanced users have given to make the question better. This way, anyone who is not writing a question correctly can be redirected to the tutorial type of pages.

This will utilize the already existing effort of people to correct the questions and slowly lower their burden on correcting new questions.

@Jayesh Thanks for your input. I'm having trouble to see what you're proposing. Aren't "correcting" and "showing tutorial page" both reasonably intensive tasks? Perhaps you can elaborate on what you mean by these?

And the real issue was whether to close that questions or correct them. For the quality of the site, correcting them is better.

But as far as the time required goes, the banning them is better.

So, we do not want to do the second thing, and we cannot do the first.

Solution is to initially concentrate on some "bad" questions which have been improved with help from other people.

And this questions, their edit history as well as their comments can be displayed in a single page without hiding anything as a tutorial page.

Once enough of these questions have been accumulated, we can simply tell the users to learn art of question posting from the tutorial pages and if they do not listen, we can ban them or whatever action is needed.

This way, we are not leaving the newbies in dark, nor are we just "losing" them.

@Lord_Farin Is this more clear now?

@JayeshBadwaik Yes, thank you.

I think such tutorial pages can be a very valuable addition to include in, say, a "How to write a good question" meta thread (as is proposed for the current proposal, to replace the "How to write a good homework question"). Other than that, there seems not to be a large difference between a comment template and your suggestion. Or did I misunderstand?

@Lord_Farin Yes, a comment template would have very precise rules which are generalized. By having questions like I have said, we can teach people by example, so they can better relate it to the stuff they want to ask. I am not sure people who do not already know how to ask are going to read the templates and adapt them to their own questions very successfully. It is better to teach by example I will say.

@Jayesh What I propose is more a kind of amalgamate, in which a comment template contains a link to a page featuring one or several "tutorial questions". Would e.g. this question and its history be suitable as an example? I really think there is merit in your suggestion, just trying to think how we can get it to work.

@Lord_Farin Yes, we can have an amalgamate too. And yes, the question is good for the purpose.

@BrianM.Scott You are invited here to provide a constructive contribution instead of leaving comments of resentment.

@Lord_Farin If Brian has not yet posted in this chatroom, he won't see your message. Unless you left a comment on main pointing to this room...

That is the main chatroom.

I like dis!

@J.M. Thanks, I'll leave him an invitation on an appropriate place (I'm still struggling to see why I can't just send him a private note or invitation).

@BrianM.Scott

Hello, Brian.

I’ve someone coming in about half an hour, so I can’t stay too long.

I must say I am not sure where I'm standing in this discussion.

@Lord_Farin System’s just not set up that way. Occasionally this leads to notes appearing in very odd places.

Hello @Brian. Thanks for dropping in. After your most recent comment it seemed apt to try and involve you in this discussion.

Because I strongly feel that the way MSE (meta) community is getting separated into two "camps" is not a good thing, and needs to be resolved somehow.

@Lord_Farin It’s not good, but in all honesty I don’t see it changing soon, unless a significant number of people on one side or the other leave or change their minds.

@BrianM.Scott Could you be bothered to give a detailed explanation of the origin of your point of view, and the arguments that support it?

It may help to get to understand one another better, and open up new inroads towards a unified policy.

@Lord_Farin It seems to me that zyx and I have explained at great length in comments on various threads. And the abuse that I’ve received from one person has left me with little desire to repeat myself.

@BrianM.Scott Invite that person to the chatroom ;-)

@BrianM.Scott I suppose he couldn't help himself; he could have stated his position with less harshness, I think.

@BrianM.Scott We will see if he can "walk the walk."

:D

@skullpatrol No, thanks. The less I have to do with Hurkyl at this point, the happier I’ll be.

@BrianM.Scott He is an active member of PF, the Physics Forum, yes?

@skullpatrol I don’t know; apart from J.M., I’ve paid very little attention to who’s active where.

@BrianM.Scott True. And it is precisely the idea of my request to take the discussion a step beyond by asking for comprehensive, unabridged and fully detailed explanations of a point of view, detached from any emotional connotations influenced by comments being a reply to a comment of "the other side".

You may take interest in reading my wall of text above which addresses one of zyx's comments and explains my take on one of the suggestions.

@Lord_Farin It doesn’t matter that the purpose is not to discourage new users and muzzle answerers; what matters is that this is the effect. (Though in fact I think that some users do want to muzzle some answerers — ones who in their opinion give too much help.)

As for not wasting answerers’ valuable time, I think it self-evident that that’s for the answerers themselves to decide.

@BrianM.Scott I would say I am rather annoyed at the people who aren't satisfied with just downvoting.

@J.M. So am I. Despite assurances to the contrary, it is a bit of a pain to have to reopen a question.

@J.M. I prefer closing to downvoting because then if the question is improved somebody can vote to reopen, rather than me having to remember to check and remove my downvote. It would be nice if "closing" had a less negative name.

@MattPressland I don’t care about the name: I dislike the effect.

@MattPressland This is precisely my point of view.

@MattPressland Since the closing system's being overhauled, you might get your wish just yet.

@BrianM.Scott That's fair enough, but it's something we clearly disagree on. It seems from the question you commented on to prompt your invitation to chat that even the comment template, with the threat of closure, can lead to improvements to the question - I am happy with how that thread has developed (and particularly that it didn't get as far as closure). The OP seems still to have something to learn about asking good questions, but at least that process is happening.

@MattPressland If edits to a question were somehow able to prompt previous downvoters, would you then prefer downvoting to closing?

@J.M. This would certainly make it easier for me to decide on a downvote first, and then after some sufficiently long time span, change that to a close vote.

@MattPressland But what some people seem unwilling to recognize is that even when the OP doesn’t improve the question — quite possible can’t improve it, being totally at sea — there is often real and productive interaction between the OP and an answerer. I know: I’m forever getting hit with the system’s desire to move me to chat.

@J.M. Maybe. Although my other point of disagreement with Brian is that I do think that sometimes it's good to prevent answers from being given, and closure serves this purpose as well. What I've seen from Brian suggests that he is good at telling when a complete answer will be useful, compared to a hint or to silence, but other users aren't so good, and particularly with simpler homework questions I'm concerned that answers appear to quickly.

@Lord_Farin I bring this up since there was a proposal like that on meta a number of months ago, but nothing came of it. Maybe it's time to brush off the dust.

@BrianM.Scott Ah, what I wouldn't give if every asker could be coaxed into Socratic dialogue...

I don't want to circumvent the process whereby students think about homework problems, and this is probably happening some of the time that questioners post CPQ. A discussion between the OP and users in the comments to the question is fine by me (and these usually seem to be productive) but I would like to prevent full answers in some cases.

Do the comments to the question stay open on closure?

@J.M. That’ll be the day! :-) I’m actually a little surprised at how many can be.

@MattPressland as far as I know, yes, it is possible to comment on a closed question

Unfortunately I have to leave now, but I'll try to drop by again later - thanks to Lord_Farin for starting what hopefully will be a productive discussion, and to everybody else for conducting it so civilly.

@MattPressland Thanks; your contribution is valued.

@MattPressland Yes, closed questions can still be commented on.

@TobiasKildetoft It is, but I don’t expect new users to realize this. And since the most productive give and take occurs in comments on answers, it won’t help if questions get closed before answers appear.

Locked questions are the ones that can't be commented on, and thankfully, only mods can do locking.

@BrianM.Scott I have most of the productive discussions with the askers in comments (when there are no answers)

@TobiasKildetoft And I have far, far more in comments after I’ve given hints.

@J.M. Can you provide a link? I'll star it FFR.

@BrianM.Scott me too. I guess the main difference is that I prefer to give the hints in a comment rather than as an answer

I've tended to answer only after a successful Socratic dialogue in the comments in some cases.

@TobiasKildetoft Tiny hints can go in comments. Many of my hints are actually partial solutions, with enough left to force the OP to think about the problem a bit. I see a lot of hints given, either in comments or as answers, that I’m pretty sure are useless to the OP: they’re simply too brief or too sophisticated.

@Lord_Farin Hmm, this was for answers only, but I suppose it shouldn't be troublesome to request this for questions, too.

@BrianM.Scott Could you be as kind as to produce arguments against suggested policy, instead of arguing against the arguments backing it?

@BrianM.Scott I prefer to give as few hints at a time as possible, and then expanding on them if the OP asks for further hints

@BrianM.Scott Indeed, most of the answers I read from you are like this. However, not everyone is as experienced and conscientious as you are; do you acknowledge there lies a problem here?

@Lord_Farin It seems to me that I did just that in the comment above about the actual effect (as distinct from the purpose) of the policy.

@Lord_Farin Only in the sense that some people are all exercised about it; I don’t see it as intrinsically a real problem, no.

Unfortunately I have to beg off. I hope we can eventually move on to something manifestly better than the uneasy détente we have had for a while.

I'll look at the logs when I get back. See y'all later!

@J.M. Bye. Your contribution is valued.

@BrianM.Scott Heh, "exercised". A funny typo in the context

Is there any consensus?

Not yet.

@TobiasKildetoft Eh? That’s not a typo: that’s exactly what I meant to say.

Ohh, I thought you meant to write excited.

@Lord_Farin I think that we shouldn't downvote newbs, and not vote to close.

Just let the guy know we expect some personal work. Or some feeback.

@BrianM.Scott ahh, just found it. Was not aware of that use of the word

@TobiasKildetoft Oh, good: now I don’t have to dig up a reference! <g>

@Brian Suppose that in some magical way all users added context, and own work and thoughts to their questions. Would you say that improves MSE?

@Lord_Farin It’s so unlikely that I’ve a hard time answering the question: there are simply too many users who literally can’t offer any work and thoughts of their own. I think, though, that my answer would have to be ‘not very much, as far as I’m concerned’.

@BrianM.Scott I agree with you.

@BrianM.Scott Let us ignore the first part of your answer because it cannot be confirmed or refuted. Why do you think that questions with context and own work are "not very much better" than questions without?

@Lord_Farin I think it is just a pet peeve. "Oh look, the guy put some work, that encourages me to help."

I just answer because I want to contribute to MSE, I don't really make it personal.

@Lord_Farin Because I don’t care. Yes, sometimes the extra material is helpful. But not infrequently it’s irrelevant to me or even counterproductive.

If the guy is a slacker, I don't care. If the guy is a hard working person, well, better.

@BrianM.Scott Sire.

Quick sanity check in topology

I am beginning to agree that forcing extra information in the original question will not help.

Ok, so you two don't care. Fair enough. I suppose it will be hard to change that. How big does the (again, apparent/voting) majority in favour of QA measures need to become until you consider their opinion worth looking beyond your own ideal solution ("doing nothing")?

Since what extra information is really needed will be better obtained via a dialog in comments

@Lord_Farin It won’t happen. If this sort of closing becomes routine or, worse yet, policy, either I will find some way to live with it, or I will leave.

@PeterTamaroff Yes.

@BrianM.Scott Yeah! =)

unfortunately, as it stands at the moment, there is a good chance such a dialog will never get going because someone provides a full answer before the OP has a chance to respond. And as explained quite well in a recent meta answer (forgot by who and in what thread), most students are not really aware of the value of spending time thinking about the problem

@BrianM.Scott Oh, noes. =(

@PeterTamaroff You need to use Hausdorffness earlier: pick disjoint $N_{p,x}$ and $N_x$.

so once they get a full solution, they will no longer engage in a dialog that leads them to discover that answer for themselves

@BrianM.Scott Which one?

The $N_p$'s?

@BrianM.Scott Does this also intend to answer my question, or is it only a comment on the first sentences?

@BrianM.Scott Oh. Right.

NO.

@PeterTamaroff Then reduce it to finitely many, and intersect the corresponding $N_{p,x}$’s.

Sorry if that’s a little incoherent: I’m going to have to run, since my exterminator just showed up.

@BrianM.Scott What can fail if I don't do that?

@Lord_Farin I’m not sure what first sentence you mean here.

@Brian "Ok, so you two don't care. Fair enough. I suppose it will be hard to change that."

@TobiasKildetoft Whatever insight is obtained in the comments should be added to the question, if I recall the SE guidelines correctly. In any case, this ("where is context/work provided") is a bit of a minor point in the grand scheme of "showing context/work".

@TobiasKildetoft The rest of your input is one of the reasons for me to support QA.

@Peter Could you be bothered to answer this question?

@Lord_Farin Hmm. I have looked into the proposal. I think it is worth looking into, and I have given my opinion: I think it is worthless. It would make everything more bureaucratic and wouldn't change much.

@PeterTamaroff With all due respect, that's not an answer to my question. It's your point of view. What share of votes needs to disagree with you before you admit that things aren't going to go your way?

(@Peter Sorry, I now see that you honestly tried to answer my question. Please read the above as "not an answer to my intended question".)

@Lord_Farin I’m not sure how much votes on meta actually mean. It’s very noticeable, for instance, that the highest-rep user here has the good sense not to participate in meta (yes, that’s a self-condemnation!), and he’s virtually my twin in his actions on the main site.

I tend to see meta as a home for the disgruntled.

Who are not, of course, always the same people.

@BrianM.Scott Our views differ. Though given recent events, I can understand where you're coming from (I haven't really been around long enough to assess the long-term behaviour of meta).

I view meta as a place for people who care about the welfare of the entity "MSE" enough to devote some of their time to trying to improve it.

@Lord_Farin I will not change my course of action, if that is what you're asking.

@Lord_Farin Oh, I’m quite sure that that’s a good part of the motivation. But the fact remains that an institution like meta to a large extent self-selects for activists and busybodies, no matter how good their motivations.

@BrianM.Scott How can my proof fail, Brian?

@PeterTamaroff You might have $x$ in the closure of one of your $N_p$’s.

@BrianM.Scott I see.

@PeterTamaroff If you think about it, you’ll see that the argument, if it worked, would work in $T_1$-spaces as well, but we know that the result isn’t true there.

So I just take for each $p$, $N_p(x)$ and a fixed $N_x$ such that $N_p(x)\cap N_x=\varnothing$.

@BrianM.Scott =)

Yes.

My first work is using $T_1$ness.

Then I use $T_2$ness.

@PeterTamaroff Right. Then you reduce to finitely many $N_x$’s covering $K$ and intersect the corresponding $N_p(x)$’s.

@BrianM.Scott Wait. I seem to have misunderstood you. Let me spell it out.

Take $x\in X\setminus K$.

@BrianM.Scott Fair enough, I suppose you're right. Fact remains, it's the only thing we have. But then why do you yourself come to meta, if you're not taking it to have any authority over MSE anyway?

@PeterTamaroff Hang on; let me write it out.

@Lord_Farin Because I’m an idiot. I see something in the sidebar that provokes a response, and I wander over, even though I know better.

Also, if this topology discussion is going to be lengthy, please use a private chatroom. This wasn't designed for math discussion.

For each $p\in K$, take a neighborhood $N_{p,x}$ of $p$ and a neighborhood $N_{x,p}$ of $x$ such that $N_{p,x}\cap N_{x,p}=\varnothing$.

@Lord_Farin Will finish in no time.

@PeterTamaroff Fix $x\in X\setminus K$. For each $p\in K$ choose disjoint open nbhds $U_p$ and $V_p$ of $p$ and $x$, respectively. Take a finite subcover of $\{U_p:p\in K\}$, say $\{U_p:p\in F\}$ for some finite $F\subseteq K$. Then $\bigcap_{p\in F}V_p$ is an open nbhd of $x$ disjoint from $K$. $\dashv$

@BrianM.Scott Good.

@BrianM.Scott 't Is good to see you're not beyond self-criticism :). We should have that more ingrained in all people around here. Some introspection would do miracles for the overall ambiance, I think :).

@Lord_Farin What do you mean?

@PeterTamaroff If people looked at themselves from a distance a little more, there wouldn't be as many impolite things ("mud") flying all over the place. Or that is my -- perhaps naive -- perception.

@Lord_Farin Oh. Pho sho!

@PeterTamaroff I'm possibly missing out on an accepted internet meme?

@Lord_Farin It's a derpish way to say "Surely", "For sure".

@Lord_Farin How old are you, again?

@PeterTamaroff Looks more like a Vietnamese food!

@BrianM.Scott HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

@BrianM.Scott I am learning combinatorics.

This is good; combinatorics is fun.

@BrianM.Scott I am pretty bad at it =D

@PeterTamaroff I see. Thanks for explaining. I have always carefully avoided leetspeak and other grammar disfigurements.

@Lord_Farin Hehe, I just do it for the Lulz.

@BrianM.Scott I have a lot of exercises to do. It is all I have to learn to ace my Algebra I course.

@PeterTamaroff Combinatorics for algebra?

@PeterTamaroff Sorry to interrupt, but I'd really like this room to be on-topic.

There's a plethora of other places available for small talk.

To try and maybe get this discussion going again, I'd like to try to address @BrianM.Scott's earlier point about students who are too confused to provide any prior work or ideas. The ideal response to this, from my point of view, would be to have a short discussion in the comments to the question that tries to pin down the point of confusion a little more carefully - I find that usually the questioner doesn't know/understand the definitions, but maybe it's more subtle.

(This models what I would do with such a person in real life). This should hopefully progress to the point at which the questioner is able to make some attempt at answering their question themselves. From a pedagogical point of view, I see it as vital that no full answers are posted before this time; I see no way of achieving this without closing the question.

Otherwise the temptation for the questioner to trick themselves into thinking they've understood he answer will often be too great, and a valuable learning opportunity will have been missed. This policy is not designed so much to improve the site (although lots of people seem to think this would be a side benefit) but to improve the education of the questioner - I see this as much more important.

I don't see any way to achieve this ideal situation (maybe you don't see it as ideal - I'm open to hearing about that if so) without closing the question at least temporarily. As I said above, I'm completely behind the idea that we should make this process as friendly as possible to new users, and the current approach, even with the comment template, probably doesn't achieve this as much as I would like.

I'm sure there was something else I wanted to say, but I can't remember it. Maybe it'll come to me in a bit.

@MattPressland That is pretty much my thoughts on this subject too