CURED

@ellisaba The people who think that a question is worth answering should be the ones editing it. If they don't, I have no qualms deleting their post.

All the more respect I have for moderators, who often have to make timely decisions based on what they know at that moment, without the luxury of "sleeping on it".

I would suggest that you just move on. Nothing untoward or inappropriate has happened here, and no one was trying to insult or offend you.

Problem is as mentioned that the unjustified answers (although they are usually good) are often faster than the closers. This attracts poor questions since users see that they have a chance to get an answer without the necessary effort and context. And this cannot be the aim of this site.

Quick deletions are very rare , for a quick deletion , a score of at least -3 , 5 closevotes AND 3 delete-votes are necessary. A question must be very poor that this will happen ! Most questions are closed and NOT quickly deleted, if this happens, this almost always has good reasons.

I am torn here. First, self-answered questions are encouraged. Second, multiple answers are allowed (but must it really be three of them?). Third, according to the Guidelines for context edits and rewrites, asking a new question is proper if the previous one is unsalvageable (but does the new one meet the bar that “The new question must be well above what would normally be the bar for acceptability”?)

FYI, room frequenters: there are at least a dozen answers in the mod tools, (users > 20 K, having received 2 delete votes, but salvaged with an upvote or two, so they appear grey. I've dealt with all of them. Just a reminder to check out the tools tab on the page listing all review queues.

Let's stick to 16 as a start. If it turns out to be too high, then we can adjust.

I would suggest, since we have quite a few users now regularly posting lists of links to close or deleted, that each user posting such links limit themselves each day to a limit of 16 total links (combined close/delete total). Otherwise this room is becoming a bit unmanageable to keep on top of it.

These annoyances are all trying to make Math SE's quality become monotonically decreasing.

@user Nor do I agree that it is a volation to Coc to express the opinion that massive duplication of FAQs is one of the primary factors "killing" the site. I've stated such countless times here and on meta and this is the first I've ever heard anyoneobject that way.

FYI: GENTLE is frozen.

Aaargh, by mow you'd think it was impossible, but lo and behold SE is making even poorer design decisions now retroactively changing question upvotes to +10. This means there will be far more less experienced folks "moderating", which will likely make the site much lower quality. Time to start thinking about a new platform....

@AlexanderGruber I understand that rationale. The same reasoning applies to users who vote to close a question, whose names are brandished below the on-hold/closed question, visible to all who read the question subsequently, like a scarlet letter on each of five close-voters, and after which those close-voters are targeted by downvotes and other forms of retaliation. Either list both close-voters and reopen voters below the respective question, or either. I'm simply asking for parity.

@darijgrinberg It's not strange at all. Users who post PSQs for a while learn that there is a good chance that a few people will not only upvote but also protect their lazy questions, so they do not have to care one bit about giving context. I again repeat what I said before that unless we stop protecting PSQs, we are helping cheaters to profit.

@Peter This got an astonishing 7 upvotes, considering it is very new, and also low-quality

@gimusi When you joined in, the site was already broken in that way. And, IMHO, you are making it worse.

Unconvinced @MartinSleziak. That still leaves the impression that such questions were to an extent ok. Both to the asker, and noobs who see such answers posted. Admittedly getting hints in comments may also encourage such askers to come back for more.

I think calling the founder's opinion "random" is a bit of stretch. But, you are welcome to call my opinion "random". And, we have already lost several people of note due to the site gaining a reputation as a homework mill. A free homework service is sure to have an impact, but not one worth striving after.

I'm not sure that I see the "historical significance" of that problem. :\

@MattSamuel The answers to the question linked above give a probabilistic approach nearly identical to this answer, and approaches reliant on Stirling's approximation similar to this answer (among others). Same story, different numbers.

@MattSamuel I think you'll find all the close votes are concerned with the existence of two unrelated questions in one post.

@BillDubuque How very condescending. The fault is with the reader, who lacks experience, and not the writer who is failing to be clear...

This asks us to read a paper and no other context is given. There is a bounty as well which forbids closure. I will remove the bounty so that the review can be done. I have also added a comment there to include relevant portions from paper.

@ParamanandSingh that was our intent! Glad to see that it is well-received, we hope that it will help settle some of the recent clashes on this topic.

Repfarmers at work to reopen a duplicate.

@user21820 I’ve only known one real crank in person. My impression was that he knew, subconsciously or not, he would be unable to make contributions in conventional mathematics, so he rationalized “breaking with conventional mathematics. Another big component I think is that cranks often want to believe the experts are wrong. This makes for a more compelling pitch when they’re trying to blinker people who know nothing about mathematics.

Actually I do not think that it matters whether fast guns are motivated by reputation, by badges, by showing off how fast they can type or by something completely else (it might even be very noble motivations) - if their activity is detrimental to the overall quality of the site.

No one is suggesting that you stop "teaching", Bill Dubuque, only that you teach to eager users you likely neglect when you answer homework questions.

@Bill, in this case I think you may be thinking too personally. The question itself is objectively terrible. It is true that, for some time, there had been a kind of forgiveness extended to older questions, but I think that is not done as much anymore. My own thought is that the more likely reason the question was found is because of the asker.

As a general reminder, do not use user-profiles or user-activity as a selector. Focus on posts on an individual basis, and avoid most any mention to who posted something or who did something.

Jeebus. Trying to sabotage someone's career because you don't like their approach to interaction on a website is utterly sociopathic.

Congrats to @XanderHenderson!! Or, I should say, @XanderHenderson $\color{blue}{\diamondsuit}$

@RushabhMehta Perhaps, but they've stopped in here, and conversations were had. They know this room; they are welcome to come here, as they have in the past. But they choose not to do so. They merely want to be left alone to continue, like other rep-farmers, gaining rep without what they see as "people who, though right, are a threat to their rep gain each day, week, month, etc." They aren't about to engage in an honest discussion, here, or anywhere, because they've run out of excuses.

@MikeEarnest Any thoughts the asker has? Where he's stuck. He didn't post any work, he just claimed it. Tons of posts come from X-Y issues, as simple as mistakes in algebra manipulations. Please refrain from sounding hostile. You're very quick to make accusations here. Please also learn to be receptive to responses, without dismissing them pre-emptively. You should not have answered the question.

@Carsogrin It took a lot of yelling to get a response?! Your post on meta is only two hours old, in total! Be more patient. This is an asynchronous medium of communication. You have no right to expect instant feedback.

Hot Network PSQ w/ 12 +votes

@JoséCarlosSantos What you say "clearly" is not clear. The asker said nothing at all to indicate what he/she believed "convergent subsequence" meant.

@darijgrinberg That question is also a duplicate from 6 years ago. Those who can write a good answer can do it at the original. Actually A) the original is not any better, but managed to survive, possibly because it was tagged contest-math. B) the duplication is so precise that we can also ask the diamond bearer to merge the two threads. That way all the voters can compare ALL the answers.

Maybe I will run for moderator. If elected, my first official act will be to burninate that tag. I can then step down. :P

FWIW I have been thinking about the connection to AOPS a lot lately. Mostly because Approach0 started indexing AOPS as well, so finding dupes there is now easier. But years ago I was working on a toughish contest-problem, and posted my answer. I gave an encouraging comment to another (frankly IMO slightly less complete solution than mine), and the author confided that they were copy/pasting from AOPS. Anyway, I am planning on posting about this in meta.

@Sebastiano I feel like we've been here before...

My opinion, in case anyone is interested in hearing, is that a non-answer should only be posted if it makes a substantial contribution in the sense that its contents cannot easily be obtained by other people. I don't think running a computer simulation counts as substantial. Moreover, it didn't even come with code, or anything else. mathworker21's post at least has some mathematics, on first glance. One can easily post a comment that links to a pastebin if to share computer-generated data.

Lol "This behavior is greatly inhibiting site organizatiuon." As if we were going to be sold on the forgone conclusion that your actions are tantamount to flawless site organization. If there is a legitimate problem here then it sounds like a problem for flags and moderators, not a public shaming match.

@MartinR Looks like they've been suspended again, this time for a year, for low-quality contributions.

@HarishChandraRajpoot: Your actions yesterday on the question Saad mentioned above (answering and putting words into the asker's mouth) is not in line with your words "now I try my best to avoid answering such PSQs". Please stop doing that. There are plenty of good questions that you can answer instead of lousy ones.

@Saad I understand. But all you need to do is say the word, and you've got a spot here as a room owner. I am sorry that I'd been frustrated yesterday, not so much with you, but for the same reasons you're frustrated. But I am sorry if it came across as venting against you. I would never have added you as a room owner if I did not trust you. I still trust you. And you can still propose casting votes in this room. You've earned that time and again.

I wish that I could double the time I spend on each new post that I find needing more input from the OP and customize the comment I post under such posts, but doing reviews already consumes most of my time and energy on MSE, whereas some users don't even bother to spend a single minute clicking the link I give and taking a look at the clear and detailed guidance written by the whole community. Sigh.

Either way, as you said that you have nothing more to say, I invite you to leave.

@RithikKapoor one should note that the room actually creates a certain additional transparency. If there were no chat, likely users would just go by the questions on the list of posts with delete or close votes that the software provides.