Changing custom close reasons

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2:57 PM

Q: Revamping the closure reasons in 2022

Prompted by Gro-Tsen's recent meta question, it appears that now may be a good time to rethink our site-specific close reasons here on MathOverflow. Background: If you have sufficient rep, you can click the "close" button on a question (or the equivalent "flag" → "needs improvement", which is av...

A: Revamping the closure reasons in 2022

We've now implemented exactly the sort of changes discussed here. (Thanks in particular to Stefan Kohl!). Here's are the new community-specific close reasons: You'll see we've deleted both the old community-specific close reasons, and replaced them with two new ones. The first one is meant to f...

From the above post:

Text displayed to user whose question has been closed:

> This question does not appear to be about research level mathematics within the scope defined in the help center.

> MathOverflow is aimed towards professional mathematics, and questions that are on-topic should reflect this in both subject and level. More elementary questions about mathematics are on-topic on Mathematics, provided they are well-written according to the standards of that site.

Text displayed to potential close voter:

> This question is not about research level mathematics.

> This close reason should be used if a question is either not about mathematics or if it is not of interest to mathematicians. The latter is often the case because the level of the question is not advanced enough, which in general holds for example for student exercises.

> If besides being too elementary for MathOverflow the question is good and written down in a reasonable way, please consider leaving a comment suggesting to post the question on Mathematics instead.

Q: Was the custom close reason mentioning Math.SE removed?

For a long time, these two custom close reasons used to be available: This question does not appear to be about research level mathematics within the scope defined in the help center. MathOverflow is for mathematicians to ask each other questions about their research. See Math.StackExchange to ...

discussion support math-stackexchange close-reasons

A: Was the custom close reason mentioning Math.SE removed?

We've changed the close reasons; as mentioned, this question came mid-stream. See the answer here for an explanation.

So in the end, the change was made on Monday rather than Tuesday. :-) — Martin Sleziak 1 min ago

@MartinSleziak This is MathOverflow after all. We run a tight ship :) — Tim Campion ♦ 31 secs ago

On a more serious note, if somebody has some observations, comments, objections, bug reports, etc. (concerning the new close reasons), I guess the right place to discuss them is the linked post - or a completely new question if needed. Is that correct? (I have created a chatroom related to this - but so far it didn't attract any attention.) — Martin Sleziak 1 min ago

@MartinSleziak That makes sense. Thanks for mentioning the chatroom. I'm sure there will be a learning curve for everybody. — Tim Campion ♦ 27 secs ago

Hi @TimCampion.

Tim Campion

Hi @MartinSleziak

Martin Sleziak

I guess this is a reasonable time of the day both for Europe and for the USA...

Tim Campion

indeed!

Martin Sleziak

TBH I did not expect much activity here, but at least the chatroom existed (and still exists) if somebody wants to discuss the changes and they have something that would be too chatty for the comments.

Tim Campion

Sure!

Martin Sleziak

3:11 PM

And additionally we have screenshots of the "close reasons screen" as it evolved here in one place.

In addition to the recent one (from your posts), the three other versions are here: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/136824/2022/6/6

Tim Campion

Yes, it's become a rather complex history!

I've marked this meta question as "featured", but it hasn't yet appeared in the community bulletin for me.

(that's where the new close reason are explained)

Martin Sleziak

I wonder whether the changes to the close reason somehow change how frequently people vote to migrate. I would guess that most likely it won't change much.

In the stats on Mathematics I see 22 migrations from MO in the last 90 days: math.stackexchange.com/tools/posts/migrated/stats

Tim Campion

haha I don't have enough math.se rep to see that!

Martin Sleziak

Well, on MathOverflow the situation is reversed - you can see the migration stats, I do not have acceess.

Tim Campion

23 to math.se, 8% rejected in the last 90 days

also 3 to ... some site whose symbol i dont recognize

cross validated

Martin Sleziak

3:15 PM

a.k.a. stats.se Cross Validated

I think we have basically the same conversation (about featured and community-bulletin) once before.

in MathOverflow, May 3, 2021 at 5:43, by Martin Sleziak

BTW it seems that the content of the community-bulletin is cached for some time - the tag featured was removed but I still see at as "featured on meta".

in MathOverflow, May 3, 2021 at 13:42, by Catija

@MartinSleziak It can take up to 12 hours.

Tim Campion

ah, thanks!

Martin Sleziak

That one was removal rather than addition - but probably in this case the change won't be immediate either.

Looking at Asaf's comment, it seems that things turned out to be more complicated than expected. ("If not by tomorrow, then by Tuesday.")

But still, the change came faster than I expected. (I thought that if nothing changes for a month since that comment, then I'll ping Asaf again to ask whether the planned changes have been dropped.)

Tim Campion

It's mostly just been a matter of people getting drawn away by other commitments

I was traveling for the last month for instance

Martin Sleziak

Is comunity vs. community two different spellings of the same word, or just a typo?

I am not a native English speaker - so my input should be taken with a grain of salt when language is concerned.

I mean here - in your recent answer:

> The first one is meant to fill the role previously filled by both old comunity-specific close reasons...

Tim Campion

Just a typo

Martin Sleziak

3:25 PM

If nothing else, editing it will bump the post at the top of the page. But I suppose that the featured tag should attract some attention once it kicks in.

In any case, there is some stuff I should be doing - so I'll probably leave soon.

Thanks for stopping by in this chatroom! (And see you later!)

Tim Campion

see you!

1 hour later…

Martin Sleziak

4:39 PM

It is shown in the community-bulletin now.