2020 Moderator Election Chatroom

Why are people teasing the bot? If it gets annoyed too much it might sabotage the ongoing election by giving wrong answers to users.

Interesting; before that they told me I already have a diamond.

This one. Why?

I have interacted with @TheSimpliFire on Matter Modeling SE and Operations Research SE. I do not recognize the other candidates. Does anyone know of any red flags I might want to know before casting my vote?

(FWIW I do think that, given the disruptive nature of the behavior here, a flag was actually warranted. Please feel free to flag in the future if users are being disruptive.)

@ElectionBot Am I already a moderator?

@Shaun Wow! You have a maximum candidate score of 40! Please consider nominating yourself in the election!

@JyrkiLahtonen Your candidate score is 39 (out of 40). You are missing this badge: Marshal. Perhaps consider nominating yourself in the election?

Ah, yeah, that's mostly going to be the case. Chat IDs are for the entire network, not tied to any one site. :)

ok the issue is that your chat id is different from your Math.SE id, so it couldn't fetch from the API. I'll see if I can get it fixed. All other bot commands will still work

Either is fine.

Oh, I see it now. Nevermind!

@MattSamuel The offensive name for camp 3 has been retired. Though I have heard that in StackOverflow they have a (non-offensive) substitute. Sure, those are prejudices, may be closer to caricatures, but they do reflect how users see other users actions. I'm sure you have noticed during this election campaign that the division is still there even though the more offensive terms have gone.

It just seems to me that you want to brush aside the existing compromises, and let camp 3 have it all their way.

But that doesn't excuse the bad question in the first place, which was just the 1 line "Prove that the sequence {an} = 1 + cos(1)/1! + cos(2^2)/2! + cos(3^3)/3! + ... + cos(n^n)/n! is Cauchy." and nothing else.

@XanderHenderson yes, you have. Thanks for your time :)

The problem might already be to know what the inverse is or what a matrix is. That's not entirely unrealistic. To a large part this goes away when we insist on some context, and the question-post, e.g., contains the information. "I know that I need to find a matrix B such that BA = AB = I. However, I do not know how to do that. "

@MattSamuel Bottom line, you're being lazy and not entirely transparent when you fail to answer questions, but instead, you fall back on "I know it when I see it".

@MattSamuel Instead of complaining about this or that, and attacking users who do this or that, I'd like you to start framing your answers to questions in terms of what you do, and why, and what you would do, and why, as a mod. You've framed your candidacy in terms of what you see as problems with other users, rather than in terms of how you would solve problems. And when you say anything along the lines of "I'll do what I need to to when I see it, and what I do will be determined by that."

@MattSamuel don't change the subject.

@amWhy Ooh that would be scary...

@Matt If you are elected a moderator, and act to suspend a user, are you going to fall back on "I know a user who should be suspended when I see them"?

@MattSamuel So you wouldn't object to users saying they closed a question as not clear, or lacking context, because they know clear questions with context when they see it? You blame others for being subjective, but you're admitting to the same "flaw".

@quid Of course it is subjective. Determining whether a question is clear is not an algorithmic process, it's asking yourself whether you understand it and whether you think someone could answer it.

It's really basic mathematics, but it asks about the concept, and so I think it deserves to be much better favoured than questions that just say "Find XYZ integral." and nothing else!

@amWhy yes everybody agree that "some are coddled by mods", but who those "some" are is up for debate.

@amWhy we do try to be evenhanded. Sometimes we might fail. I frequently get accused of it. From opposing sides. Sometimes it seems everyone agrees I favor the "other" side.

@T.S I don't quite understand this call for "proof". This is not a court of law. Would you also insist that baseball umpires should be able to give "proof" to each and every call they make? The game would slow down to a crawl. Just make calls as you see them when you see the action live. There will be reviews by others. We need to make real time decisions based on some heuristics, not proofs beyond reasonable doubt.

@user1729 I haven't looked at statistics showing there is increased usage, but it would not surprise me. And I suppose it would be logical that with more online assignments it would be easier to copy and paste problems here. With regard to cheating, I don't think my policy would change; we'd keep our eyes and ears open and crack down on cheating if there is proof.

@user1729 I would have to see examples to comment, but I've stated that I don't necessarily see what others would call "PSQs" as a problem. I don't think users should have to prove that they attempted the problem or necessarily give any other explanation if the problem is clear.

@MattSamuel What are your opinions on the situation user21820 just described: a user with 5k rep who consistently posts PSQs?

5k+ rep earned from almost only PSQs. And it's not that they cannot ask good question. They did ask a small handful of good questions, but found that Math SE rewards PSQs with full answers much of the time so they never bothered to write good questions.

@user21820 Do you have an example on hand of a user like this? I personally haven't seen such a user, but I haven't gone looking, so there's no telling what I've missed!

@user21820 Whereas a withering comment from a non-moderator will rid us of this particularly resilient form of cheater more effectively than being personally dressed down by a moderator? Moderators have tools for identifying sockpuppet accounts, so I think it might be more effective than you think.

Moreover, flagging for moderator attention should not be the way to handle everyday closure/deletion of PSQs! The few of them cannot handle the whole lot of junk. That's what community moderation is supposed to be for.

@TheoBendit If a student keeps getting his friend/uncle professor to give full solutions, rather than approach you for actual mathematical guidance, do you just sit back and close both eyes?

@Randal'Thor That seems fair. I do want to point out that the treatment of new users (and whether it is a problem or not) is indeed one of the points that one of the candidates (Matt Samuel) is running on. But I'll end my contribution to the argument here (and I did start it, unfortunately).

@user21820 I think you are not obliged to give any help on this site to any question you don't want to. If you think a question is not deserving of your time, then walk away. If you want to engage with the asker, then please be encouraging.

@TheoBendit While I agree with treating askers with respect by default, I am of the opinion that we are not obliged to give askers more than they give in their question and comments even if our goal is to guide them in mathematics. I treat them in exactly the same way as students who come to office hours. A student who goes into the office and just says "Solve XYZ equation. Plz give me full solution." deserves what?

@amWhy and @TheoBendit, it seems like neither of you are election candidates - does this debate about your different approaches to site moderation need to be here, or could you agree to disagree and move on?

As opposed to all those well-researched verifiable facts you posted about my secret desire to clip the wings of new users just to maintain a sense of superiority, @amWhy?

@T.S You haven't been around long enough to know one way or another. And you have a habit of citing only others who support your positions. It is clear to those you oppose and those you support that you have been clearly biased from the get go.

Regarding the "cheating" issue user21820 repeatedly raise in both meta and various chat rooms, I do not see any evidence of rampant cheating, which is a false accusation of the site. Yes, you see users posted ongoing contest problems. But so far, the number of such posts is rather small, and we do have contest problem policy posted in meta. To be on-topic of this room, I quote Matt's comment in meta:

@amWhy I don't think you actually understand what I'm advocating here. I'm saying that we should treat the askers with respect, even when we're pretty sure that they're trying to cheat. We should never make a new user feel bad for asking a poor quality question. This isn't the same thing as answering them, or not encouraging them to improve their question. It's not (just) the irate people I'm concerned about, but the people who are shamed into silently disappearing.

@TheoBendit You insult them, and fail to recognize what they are capable. If a user does not contribute anything other than a PSQ, and demands a full solution, and gets irate if asked to clarify, then they are not ready to be helped. Handing them a solution will just reinforce the behavior that got them the solution. Cite the exercise, demand a full solution, and get irate if asked anything whatsoever. I'm done here, @Theo, because I don't think you know anything with respect to encouraging...

In fact, @Theo I respect askers who come here, because I trust they can help us help them, whereas you don't even believe they have the capacity to do that. Pity undermines self-agency. Feeling sorry others may make you feel superior, but it doesn't help those you pity gain agency, and trust in their capacity to do math; you only undermine that. And hence the greatest harm comes from doubting others capacity to think for themselves. It is not I who judges, but the likes of you, because you

@amWhy Perhaps a few, sure. I think the more common impression that kind of approach gives is "You need to deal with your own homework problems; stop bothering us about it!".