CURED

While I think that there is a nugget of a good question in here somewhere, the post is long, rambles quite a bit, and seems not to get to the point. Moreover, the author continues to edit the question, making it a moving target (despite existing answers). This doesn't seem all that useful, and I recommend closure.

@Mason: Don't roll back such posts, just flag as spam.

@rschwieb The SE network has been hit by a massive spam wave, starting a few months ago. For a while Travel and (I think) SuperUser were the most heavily hit sites. But Math has been getting a lot of it, too.

Approach0 is running again!

> Can we just auto delete any question created by a new account that mentions Expedia on MSE?

@Ѕᴀᴀᴅ I would guess that most of them are not bots, but are very poorly paid people somewhere in India. But please don't roll back edits like that---it is easier to see that something is spam.

@BillDubuque Please do not admonish people for posting answers to "duplicate" questions if you are unwilling or unable to provide a link to such a duplicate. While I agree that elementary limit computations are very likely to be duplicative, if there is no dupe target, then please do not direct others not to answer.

@BillDubuque According to meta.stackexchange.com/a/51071/196432, the maximum number of delete votes needed is 10 (currently at 9).

Solution verifitication, please close.

@amWhy: I'm not seeing any instances here of FShrike "clashing" with anyone (as opposed to just expressing respectful disagreement). Can you point to one?

Otoh, if you think "gentler" toned comments would help then I am certainly open to suggestions. Since you see the flags and I don't, you are in a much better position to understand what would work better.

From a moderation perspective, the question is neither a duplicate (as there is no dupe target), nor is it a low-quality question (as it is still open, is upvoted, and has only one close vote). It is also not clearly enough a PSQ that I am comfortable acting unilaterally as a moderator. Hence your admonishments to other users are, in my opinion, out of line. Note that I am telling you this with my moderator hat on.

This question was admittedly posted on behalf of a suspended user. Should that question be deleted? They already got away with their behavior by receiving a solution.

The latest self-reopen is just another addition to his list of behaviours. I am not surprised at all. No one reading a thesis (in algebra/number theory/related areas) cares about a reference to a fact as trivial as when -1 has a square root in a finite field and hence, the question was deservedly, downvoted.

What do you think about this moderator self reopening?

This should be deleted, perhaps: math.stackexchange.com/a/4866208

Experienced users answering a FAQ and a PSQ with banalities.

C/D vulgar question, by a diamond mod

And, it is pretty rude. I can only speak in the way that I am able to. To say that I am using some kind of innuendos or silently accusing me of bad faith, is stepping dangerously out of boundaries of what's appropriate.

This room is now thirteen years old. Happy anniversary!

I would suggest closing and deleting math.stackexchange.com/q/5045808 (which is linked by Feeds directly above). It is a near duplicate of the asker's other question, and seems to open the door to a whole category of nearly identical "Collatz, but mod $n$ with slightly different rules" questions.

@rschwieb It isn't a panacea, but I think it would help.

Huh, a change like this to math.se would break the impasse between groups and probably make our job here a lot easier... Or at least a great deal of interactions would be bumping posts to the right lanes. At least the first two lanes seem to allow the two largest factions have their own domains...

@FShrike Why not close it now, wait for the OP really adding the context, and then ask for reopening? The fact that the post in its current state is eligible for closure is unaltered by a yet-to-be-fulfilled promise, and the curation process, being a state machine by analogy, would be unnecessarily complicated by introducing more promise-dependent states, IMHO.

It is ALWAYS reasonable to ask someone to explain why they want action taken by the denizens of this room.

@user2661923 Generally speaking, "Does this process looks okay?" is not really a good fit for the SE model. They are not highlighting some specific problem that they are having, and are essentially asking the SE community to grade their homework for them. I'm not in favor of reopening.

@Peter Creating a question-and-answer pair, as a reference to future users, is not only entirely acceptable, it is encouraged. If you think that you can provide a reference for others, in the form of a question to which you know the answer, you absolutely should post that question, and then post an answer. You are wrong in your belief that it is not acceptable to do this.

@Peter I disagree with this. There's nothing wrong with that answer; a now-deleted comment criticizes it for taking ultrafinitism seriously, but (and I'm far from an ultrafinitist FWIW) that doesn't make it a bad answer. I think using CURED in this way comes dangerously close to an abuse of its purpose: we shouldn't ask for downvotes on answers just for countenancing philosophical positions we disagree with.

@weeab00 SE isn't really a social media site, and discussion about specific users is off-topic on both the main site and the meta site. Why do you think that this NEEDS to be a topic of conversation on the site?

I moved SmokeDetector's messages to reduce noises, but the spamming situation is getting worse.

NAA: math.stackexchange.com/a/5034622/29335

@FShrike Your perception is very different from my own. If anything, I get frustrated by the large number of low-quality questions which get highly upvoted and reopened without getting improved.

However: (1) Sure, you can curate old content. But (a) it shouldn't be where you focus your energy, and (b) it certainly shouldn't be where you ask others to focus their energy.

Actually, it's now pretty clear that this is AI garbage: math.stackexchange.com/a/5030808/28111

Reclose PSQ mentioned by Jyrki above was reopened

@JoséCarlosSantos Consider what would happen if someone came into this room to see that you have called their post "useless". Do you think that this is an approach that is likely to be welcoming to those people? Do you think that people whose work is discussed in this way are likely to want to hear further advice about how they can improve?

@Jakobian I am not going to engage in rules lawyering with you. As a moderator, I felt that the discussion had devolved to a point where it was not healthy or useful to keep it around. It is over now. Let it die.

Please strive to keep the communication from exchange of personal attacks, thank you.

@Ѕᴀᴀᴅ seems like there is a small rebelion of people that think its okay to ask PSQ's as long as the question is "difficult"

Though I do think that a lot of people use the tag as a way of avoiding closure, as evidenced by the fact that so many of these askers give the green check to duplicate answers which have nothing to do with the post of the proof being questioned.

Maybe we need math.stackexchange.onearmtiedbehindyourback.com to field questions that end in things like "without using l'Hôpital's rule" or "without the axiom of choice." and so on.

@AttilaVajda Look, you are making the same arguments across the various posts and chatrooms associated to the Math SE website. This needs to stop. Many, many people have tried to help you, and you have accused them of hostility and bullying. I think that you need to step back from this question (and possibly the website on the whole) for a while, so that you can calm down a bit, and reflect on what people have told you.

A user here has posted four times in little more than a day, urging that this question on whether the equation a=a+1 is true for infinite cardinals without the axiom of choice should be closed/deleted. And they seem frustrated that members of the community are upvoting and voting to reopen. It's not the most elegantly written question, but it's perfectly reasonable, and has attracted a good quality answer.

This particular behaviour has occurred even in other chat-rooms where there are no starred messages criticizing other users.

I think that the problem that a lot of people have is that they assume that closure or deletion is a judgement about the quality of a question in an abstract sense---"the question is closed, therefore the community here thinks it is a bad question, period".

A flood of proofs of open conjectures is the worst thing that can happen to a math-related sites.

@FShrike Please don't explicitly call out people.

From my pov I, at worst, sometimes mildly disagree with Xander. I'm not in the business of fighting or disrespecting moderators

I think it is wrong to say I clash