CURED

I've got 38 flags pending. I hope these will be cleared up soon.

@vitamind Likely a troll, but mods on this site allow almost anything but profanity or offensive targeted attacks.

@amWhy I wish I had the guts to say that, and the answer to the poor question : well, I've seen questions much better than that up for closure. If mods set this kind of an example, then MSE's sinking won't compare to even the Titanic's.

magic words, interesting

Btw, in that magic factorization thread I commented to the OP that they shouldn't accept an answer that uses magic rather than math. The answerer replied and objected and my comment magically disappeared. I find that magic just as disturbing, I might open a meta thread on the topic - since clearly one should be able to warn students of problems with answers they accept. What do others think?

Very sad to see

@rschwieb I still think we should opt for a name change of this chat-room: CURED!

@XanderHenderson Another question worth asking: why don't people want others to think anymore (before doing the thinking for them)!

@darijgrinberg well, you didn't. It's not clear if you actually think so. You should maybe try not to be dismissive of those standards and still somehow make it by them but actually try to appreciate what the intent is.

@MarkMcClure I realize that PSQ is not exactly equivalent to homework, but Math.SE is not the only site constraining homework questions. Elsewhere they also insist that homework askers should do their research before asking. Physics banned homework altogether. I'm leaning towards the same, because neither the askers nor the answerers will abide by any compromise.

@XanderHenderson I think it should be left open. The one meaningful answer there is significantly nontrivial to suggest that there is not much more to say in the bdy of the problem that is not noise unless one has enough experience in analysis that would not have had the need to ask the question.

@JoséCarlosSantos Why not also explain why it is wrong. This will help not only the author but also those reading the answer.

@ParamanandSingh If they aren't willing to elaborate, then it's their problem, not ours. I'm going to vote to send them packing.

@MartinR I'm afraid it doesn't; and sadly, I could guess who the author was before looking the answer...

@amWhy I agree that the lack of transparency is a problem, but this is, unfortunately, a problem at a higher level than we have much ability to do anything about. Moderators are asked to sign an NDA, and admonished not to discuss moderation outside of private channels (e.g. moderator messages or super-sekret moderator chat).

Personally, I suspect that the downvotes are motivated by the fact that your question is not a good fit for the site. It is unclear what you are asking, the post is overly broad, and there is no motivation.

...when you fail to apply the same standards to a good many of your choices when answering.

@soupless NO!! Many users take advantage of this site by posting using a newly created account every day or every week. No PSQ is worth answering unless they improve the question first.

@ParamanandSingh I agree wholeheartedly; and indeed, each of us will make mistakes here and there, but you are right; they serve as great learning experiences.

Sorry, in my opinion, it is bad pedagogy to reward PSQs with good answers, as it is no different from rewarding lazy students with good grades. I think I've different principles from you, which are causing the disagreement, and so let's stop here and let other users judge for themselves.

@MathIsLife12 As I said, I voted to close the question because it lacks any relevant information. Without the external references, the question reduces to “There is this man on YouTube who says that [...] almost all math topics are taught incorrectly. Is there any truth in it or has he gone mad?”

@OliverDiaz I get it, but why not use your talent on a question like that, *after you assist the OP with some basic suggestions for improvement of the PSQ you answered? Why the rush to answer, immediately??

That doesn't preclude you from starting a new discussion. If you're not happy with the status quo, you either need to do something to bring about its change, or you need to accept that your opinion differs from the community at large.

An announcement unrelated to the exchange above: When flagging very old comments rather use "no longer relevant" than "unfriendly" even if it applies.

The requests regularly posted here can now be monitored and archived using the pinned "Request Archiver" userscript. The archiver will check if the relevant post(s) are handled according to the suggestions and if so, will move the messages to the room "CRUDE Archive", which was created for this purpose. I've tested it and it seems pretty cool! Room owners, please give it a try!

@stressedout This might be a good time to point out again that comments are meant to be ephemeral. My understanding of the SE philosophy is that the goal is to have Question / Answer sets with as little other fluff as is humanly possible. Comments are meant to help provoke askers and answerers to clarify or otherwise improve their posts. Once the improvements have been made, the comments are no longer relevant, and can be cleaned up.

ROs: Version 3.2.0 of the Request Archiver has been released (GitHub) (install). It adds support for the Archiver scan in CRUDE, CRCQR, and The Tavern, along with various other improvements and bug fixes. You should find two additional buttons "archiver" and "scan 3k" next to the chat input area. Scanning is based on # of messages. "scan 3k" scans back 3000 messages from current.

@stressedout As to participation here, please, please know that you are absolutely welcome. There is a vocal part of the MSE community which believes that this room is full of toxic, close-happy barbarians. This point of view becomes more untenable if there is greater participation, particular by people who don't all agree with each other.

Anyway, what I was actually going to say was that I noticed that there's a bunch of duplicates of deleted questions here on math.SE. Not nearly as many as on, say, SO, but there's definitely enough for a few days' worth of delete/reopen votes.

how many times has this question been asked recently? math.stackexchange.com/questions/4545651/…

D - another $0.\bar 9=1$ - question.This occurs so often that it might make sense to create a software detecting such questions automatically and close them.

@amWhy "It would be super-duper wonderful if you consider reading the Enforcement of Quality Standards on meta.math.se. Have a wonderful day!" :'D (+1)

@PaulRebenciuc Thanks for commenting here! You never really presented a big problem; it's easier to work with newer answerers, and where the real struggle has been, has been long term, habitual users, often with much in rep, who are reluctant to stop doing what they've always done. Glad to came around to these parts to visit us! You are always welcome here!

@amWhy Hello, while reading some new meta posts, I was redirected here. I recently found out that a low-quality question, with my answer in it, was totally deleted. First, I was surprised, but then, reading the new Enforcement policy, I understand the reason. Thank you for pointing me out!

@TeresaLisbon I completely understand. While there are some answerers attempting to help improve questions by commenting to the OP, the same offenders swoop down like vultures, to answer anyway.

as I write this, that this lowers the bar for high level questions, that's something I don't want to see happen because the bad habits are unfortunately the ones that spread easily. It is possible to be contextual anywhere, even when talking about Mongolian art in the Mughal era. I don't want to see certain kinds of questions preferred over others for that reason, I think others here will agree.

@s.harp Maybe, but the thinking appears to have stopped at asking the question. I think to be a good question further thoughts about what the answer might be are needed, and to be a great question it needs to be interesting to other people as well

@vitamind without knowing the rules of other sites, it seems like an interesting question for another stack. isn't there an educators site? or even academia. people there may have studied this stuff.

@leslietownes That would be incredibly useful. But note that math questions typed into the google search line get frequent hits on math.se. I've tried it out myself. And it is, seriously, more effective of a search than is SE's search engine. E.g., when searching for dupes.

@leslietownes Indeed. It can be confusing. Some comments are more helpful as hints than many "hint" answers. But as you mention duplicates, that's a huge component of the new Enforcement of Quality Standards. I have yet to see habitual PSQ/VLQ answerers in general, attempting in comments, to assist an asker to clarify their question, to add this nugget or that nugget of context, nor to search for dupes, all before answering.

@ParamanandSingh Just to note, when I run into clear cut PSQs used in audits which I fail if I vote to close it or reopen it, I downvote the post, and cast a downvote on it, to remove it from future use as an audit question. I understand in this case, you weren't clear what to make of the audit failure. I have since rendered that post ineligible as a future audit post.

@TheAmplitwist In this case I agree that your duplicate-vote was correct.

@TeresaLisbon It doesn't matter whether it is accepted. If it is a bad answer, the community has the right to vote on it, including delete-vote, for the sake of future readers. The question is whether the community agrees, not whether it is accepted. (And I acknowledge that this case is subjective hence I said "in my opinion".)

@ParamanandSingh I don't know what you are talking about.

Funny thing is that I don't know what limits are...and they taught me derivatives

there is no need to learn calculus so early товарищ

@Euler2 please take this somewhere else

@ArcticChar Don't under-estimate the maturity of users of any online forum. (Please read the post I linked to. @HereToRelax accused members in this chat-room of downvoting because they do not share the same opinion and not because the question/answer was bad.)

@HereToRelax I believe every (frequent) member in this chat room has reached a certain level of maturity and does not spend their freetime by downvoting your questions or answers.

However, as a lot of us are older, "common slang" is likely to go over our heads.