2020 Moderator Election Chatroom

My point is, I don't think you're particularly careful about offending them.

@amWhy I don't deny it, I just don't think it's clear when it happens. Even "show all the steps" appears in questions, so its appearance in PSQs isn't necessarily indicative of a will to cheat.

If we tell users forcefully that the reason we're not answering is because we don't want to do their homework, and imply that their reaching out for help is shameful/unethical, then what chance do you think they have of seeking out the help they desperately need?

@ArcticChar It's difficult to find cheating attempts for your own class because you can't be monitoring day in and day out. To estimate the true rate of cheating for that kind of course, you'd have to multiply that roughly by the number of similar courses across the world divided by the number that you teach. And indeed, if we relax the question standard on Math SE, we will become like Yahoo Answers (where I saw lots of direct cheating from classmates back in school) and r/cheatatmathhomework.

@user1729 I can provide proof of cheating easily for contest cheats. But you said quite early that you want to distinguish the two, thus effectively making it difficult to provide proof, because normal people do not meticulously record every cheater and evidence they come across just so that they can answer queries like yours. It's not that you're not entitled to ask for evidence, but consider the difficulty in obtaining 100% rigorous evidence before expecting others to give it.

Or, worse, they post a question, and before I can post a comment asking for additional details, or complete a search for a duplicate, three or four FGITWs will have posted answers.

However, in my experience, most "new users" don't make that effort.

@user1729 Who is a "new user", though? What kind of users do we want to include? If someone posts a problem straight out of their textbook and is then never comes back to the site because their question was poorly received, I don't see this as a loss to the community.

@amWhy Without any data, we are all naive. We have nothing concrete to inform us, apart from our own experiences and those of people we talk to. On the one hand, people say that people cheat. On the other hand, people say that people don't ask questions here because we are too harsh to new users.

@user1729 I'm just saying it is just as likely that it is you and yours who misperceive, by underestimating, the damage done by cheating on this site. Rhetoric is easy to produce, @user1729. Making substantive arguments is a challenge I'd suggest you undertake, instead of posing hypotheses only.

@user1729 Hogwash. Cheating is deceit. And there is no nice way to paint it.

If we care about our ethical obligations to the wider community, we need to think very carefully about the consequences of what might appear to be just small policies internal to Math SE. Don't forget the many lies and cheats that contributed a significant part to the scale and severity of this ongoing pandemic. Perhaps some think that laziness in mathematics will not have such effects. I don't think so.

@MattSamuel As adequately explained by many people many times, the SE system rewards the people who answer and protect PSQs, and if the thread is not removed they will continue to feed the PSQ producers full answers, which in turn will feed the cheaters who flock to Math SE.

@MartinSleziak, chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/190503/electionbot-development

@JyrkiLahtonen Not sure if you noticed, but I personally count context no matter whether it is in the question or in the comments, for new askers. Long-time askers should learn to put context into the question, and should only be penalized if they refuse to do so. Also, that question was rightly closed as "needs details or clarity". This is different from closure for "no-effort", and such posts when clarified mostly get reopened readily.

Any chance we can get ElectionBot up and running here?

@MattSamuel Bad duplicates should be deleted, not kept around as useless stubs.

And I only caught that one because I happened to notice it in the brief window between an answer being given and the question being deleted by the OP (it was fun trying to spot the nervous students when I announced how unacceptable that was as well as the fact that I was in fact able to see deleted questions)

@user1729 I have seen one clear case of cheating on a homework assignment here, where I knew it because I was the person who had set the assignment, and it was copied verbatim in the question.

@user21820 I think it would be helpful if you could compile this evidence so that, as I said, people could view it for themselves and make an informed decision. (I feel that "contest" and "assessed" questions should be treated separately, as although both are cheating they are spotted in different ways and have different outcomes, etc.)

But it just does not occur to people on the outside to ask such questions, and I don't think they would be well-received now.

@TheoBendit I could get behind that. The answerers should be in the focus. New users are understandably confused.

I think that may have misinformed your opinion on how to approach this issue. Just because some people you came into contact with believe a certain thing about this site, doesn't imply anything unless they are actually active on this site.

But, @quid, out of it, emerged two of the best mods ever (Say "best mods ever" means the top six, all time): Daniel Fischer, and Jyrki!

Differently, a main way, more or less the only way, for the community to actually express an opinion on the direction of the site is in the moderators elections via voting a candidate that embodies its vision.

In another direction, moderators don't do much, according to the post linked to. But they accompany the moderating users in their activities. Again that's a leadership role, though arguably not political.

Your comments on meta and regarding this election have been more "political" in the negative sense of the term, than any mods or most users eager about learning about the election who participate in this chatroom.

I wonder what would happen if every user who eventually votes nominates themselves as candidates, and votes ONLY for themselves? :-) @ParamanandSingh, I am simply joking about the posting of highly improbable outcomes, as Zacky first introduced, to emphasize the highly improbable problematic outcomes... Like you, I give far more credit to users on this site, than many others do, and to the positive energy induced in a new election.

Let's be positive about coming election. Nothing worse is gonna happen because the world is already experiencing the worst kind of problem at this stage.

I do wonder, what if a comet hits the earth so forcefully that half of it is rendered without internet power during the week of voting??

in fact, this is also mentioned in the FAQ post: There's an election going on. What's happening and how does it work?

> If the number of nominees is less than or equal to the number of moderator slots the election will add, this phase will be extended by another seven days. If this is still the case once the extended period is over, the election will either be cancelled entirely (on graduated sites) or the nominee(s) will be made pro-tem moderators (on beta sites).

Something along those lines was mentioned during the election on Sports, but the extra week wasn't needed in the end: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/108760/2020/6/4

Meta Stack Exchange: What happens if there are no candidates in an election?

@Zacky AFAIK the nomination phase is make one week longer if the number of candidates is below the number of available positions plus one.

I must note that this is almost impossible to happen here, in my opinion. Even if there are few accepted unofficial nominations, this may be the case due to low meta participation. As soon as the process effectively kicks in, people will be notified of an election and participation on the process will increase.

@Zacky If I'm not mistaken, a priori there would be a (formal) election but the procedure could be short-circuited. See here for example, even though it is old.

@Zacky And how would you know this about women's choices to remain on this site, or leave it? Assumptions? You also this is the case for most users: How do you know this? More assumptions?

@Zacky We can't really know unless math.se and SE conducts further research; to dismiss my concern prior to that is, err, dismissive. And part of the problem on this site is the longstanding pattern of dismissing concerns expressed by women, without investigating them.

I do wonder (even though this is highly unlikely) what will happen if there will be a single candidate for moderator? Will there even be an election?

> A nominee must be "in good standing." Any nominee who was [suspended at any time during the past year][6] on any site in the network will not be allowed to take part in the election (unless the suspension was in error or was reversed on appeal).

@JyrkiLahtonen It's only fair to attribute many of the good things that happened to me, career-wise anyway, to my participation on the site.

@JyrkiLahtonen But you did an absolutely great job, before, during your service, and since... I still wish you were moderating. I respect your decision, but just wanted you to hear again how indebted this site is to you.

Seconding what quid said above. The number of hours I spent on the site when serving was arguably too high, and contributed to my attrition (in addition to the factors listed in my resignation speech). That was not healthy. May be Asaf should comment for his attendance is legendary :-)