Martin Sleziak's room - 2015-07-04

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11:05 AM

@MartinSleziak it's been a while but I was a bit busy, so I only now follow up on:

@quid I can't speak for Brian, but I think that both claims you hinted on are true: 1) Even good post might end without upvotes. 2) No matter how many upvotes an answer (or a question) gets, it still might be deleted. (Although the upvotes might at least prevent auto-deletion.) — Martin Sleziak Jun 16 at 21:29

Well, yes. But this makes the original comment somewhat void, which was what I was driving at.

The comment of B.M.S. mangles together things that have nothing much to do with one another. Let us recall it what it said:

@Lord_Farin: That’s not an entirely safe assumption, especially when the answer in question is at a sophisticated level in a field with a relaively small audience. — Brian M. Scott Jun 15 at 19:06

This was in reply to:

@Bill I can see that. However, I contend that any proper answer will receive enough upvotes to mitigate the risk of deletion to an extent sufficient to safely link to it. Any answer this does not apply to is apparently not worth salvaging. However, my point was that being linked to is a factor to take into consideration when casting delete votes, however should not constitute a veto against. — Lord_Farin Jun 15 at 18:24

Now, first, the same critique could be mounted against this comment: the number of upvotes is not all that relevant (except for autodel but the context were delete votes so this is tangential).

However, this comment at least has a clear message: good answers are not usually deleted, and it is rather save to link to them.

The point of B.M.S. comment is to undermine this. But it is pretty much besides the point. It is arguably true that answers at a "sophisticated level in a field with a relaively [sic!] small audience" sometimes do not get many votes, but so what? If they do or do not get deleted by votes it is not because of a lack of upvotes.

What seems attempted there is to manipulate some users that might be frustrated over lack of upvotes into fearing deletions.

I follow for some time pretty closely what is deleted; things at a "sophisticated level in a field with a relaively [sic!] small audience" is really not what is usually targeted. To implicitly suggest otherwise is a bit underhanded.

What is sometimes deleted is the same minimally variated stuff that exists on that page already n-times, sometimes with several essentially identical version even from the same users.

11:44 AM

It seems that comments on that post get somewhat off-topic. (The intention of original post was to ask about link rot of the external sources.)

@quid I tried to follow deleted posts for a few days (in the tools). But there was too many of them.

I'd say that Lord_Farin's comment is spot on: "being linked to is a factor to take into consideration when casting delete votes".

@MartinSleziak yes, since some users, one in particular, seize every opportunity to spread fear of deletions.

@MartinSleziak did you see much of value being deleted?

@quid You probably mean the first comment on that post.

@MartinSleziak yes, among others.

@quid I wouldn't say that I did. And whenever I see a deleted post or a post with delete votes which I think should be kept, I try to edit (improve) the post.

I think I recall we have even discussed in chat "fake attempts", which were not provided by the OP but by somebody else.

It seems that various users see different purposes for math.SE.

Some consider it as a platform for help users and teaching.

Some consider it as a place to collect knowledge in Q&A form.

There is no real contradiction in the last two.

11:52 AM

For users seeing as the main purpose of this site helping people with math problems, every closure or deletion might be considered as a problem. Since than the particular OP cannot get answer so they do not get help.

I too have a feeling that many users are very quick to downvote and close. I think we should cut some slack to new users especially.

Deletions should be pretty non problematic for the hyper localized teaching aspects.

The are obolete very quickly.

I do not usually keep the notes I create while talking to a student either. Sometimes the student will take them with them, but I am pretty sure the will throw them away too soon.

@MartinSleziak the problem is that the site is fast paced. The choice is basically acting right away or never.

On sites with lower volume it is feasible to special case some thing. On this site this does not work anymore, in my opinion.

Back to the deletions. The main issue there is that you list of "Some..." is not quite complete. I woudl add.

For example this post got 4 downvotes and 4 close votes in 30 minutes. Don't you think that two downvotes would already send a sufficiently clear message to the OP? Or at least that he should have a bit more time to try to improve the post before it is downvoted that much?

But it seems that I have interrupted you in the middle of your thought.

Yes, but no problem: on the post, well, yes one could say there was no need to downvote it so much; I do not like piling on votes in general. But then it is really quite unclea rwhat this is about.

On my thought.

That some users mainly want to feel good about themselves and show off a bit.

Like gather reputation, badges, etc. ...?

Not necessarily directly linked to the "numerical" metrics, but generally.

12:03 PM

I don't have a problem with a user whose main motivation is reputation. If as a byproduct he produces many good answers, that's fine.

The SE architecture is built to great extent on gamification

I do not have a problem with it either, as long as their egos do not get in the way of the good functioning of the site.

Just recall some of the recent suspension.

By "recent" you mean suspensions due to voting irregularities during the first half of this calendar year?

Not only those. But also.

I do not know much details about suspensions. (They are supposed to be known to mods only.) But I recall that at least two high rep users (definitely above 50k) were suspended in that period.

Or maybe more than two.

I do not want to focus on this though. Also the discussion that was our starting point has some good examples of behavior I consider as rooted in what I mentioned.

12:10 PM

I do not know whether we want to discuss specific users.

You might call some comments in that thread non-constructive and off-topic.

But at least for some users I think their main motive is to help others rather their own ego.

@MartinSleziak for some users this is certainly true.

Actually for many I think.

And I could understand frustration of some user who gives many good answers and then sees that they are deleted.

I see my answers deleted only very seldom. I have less than 1k answers, so I am very minor contributor to the most active users.

The should just comply to the standards that got discussed.

You mean like not answering questions lacking context and having other problems?

1k answer is quite many.

Yes, also. For the context.

12:17 PM

On the other hand, the campaign (for the lack of the better word) to close/delete questions without context is relatively recent.

Not older than two year, I'd say.

But again some users seem to oppose site policies almost out of principle. The will write lengthy lectures what they do with votes and assert at the same time they are meaningless anyway.

I am not a huge supporter of deleting very old content either.

But it is somewhat pointless to have the same answer multiple times on the site.

From the same user.

@quid I am not sure about the number of such posts, but deleting some older posts (from the time where there was no general consensus about context) was pointed out on meta. But that is definitely not the main problem here.

Or maybe they do not even oppose it, they just do not care at all.

@quid Any user has right to voice their opinion (as I often do on meta) and they can disagree with site policies. And they can use their votes as they seem fit. (With the exception of rule violations, serial voting and similar stuff.)

A point where one actually sees how little some users care is that undeletions just hardly happen.

They do not care, as long as it is not their content.

12:21 PM

I certainly do no like the rule about "including context" that much. But as it seems to be the prevailing opinion, I do my best to comply with the rules of the site.

And I often cast my votes based on various criteria. For example, I upvote question since it is interesting. (Even if it does not show any "research effort".)

I have no issue at all with voting based on various criteria. what I do not like is a dismissive attitude of some users towards the site. of course it is not perfect. but they will dismiss anything to justify them doing whatever they want. Without any consideration for what was discussed.

Like, for example, going to the close votes review queue and casting 20 "leave open" votes simply out of principle. (As an extreme inclusionist.)

Is this an example of behavior you have in mind?

This is a good example actually.

But this is at least somewhat within the rules of the site.

Well, it is definitely not a good behavior. (And there are some users who do this.) But in this particular example, one user cannot do that much. (They only have 20 votes per day. Some of them probably will be review audits) And a post worth closing will probably be closed anyway.

What annoys me more is the general attitude. They know anyway much better than everybody else what should be done, so they do not need to care and can complain.

12:30 PM

I think I have seen several rather bitter comments on meta (or in user profiles) hinting at some users disapproval of some site policies.

Personally I am talking about something a but different though I think. Be it about character limits, use of MathJax, salutations, votes, etc. It is always the same. The have some opinion and that's it.

Deviating opinions are dismissed out of hand.

Well, we cannot expect that we can agree with each other upon everything, considering the number of active users here.

There are certainly users who cannot be engaged in reasonable discussion (in my opinion).

Yes, the former is obvious and no problem. The latter is though.

I agree with that assessment. But I have doubts whether anything can be done with this at all.

And even some users which could be called (to a smaller or larger extent) problematic are among top contributors to the content of the site. So I would not like to dismiss their work for this site.

Some time ago you wrote this:

in Reopen? Undelete? Close? Delete?, Jan 25 at 0:04, by quid

@Lord_Farin I blame the complete lack of any interest in most anything but their own answers of all too many users.

I do not think it is necessarily the bad thing.

It is nice that there are users who are willing to work as moderators, edit posts, retag posts, finding duplicates etc.

But if there are users who do not want to do "administrative" tasks, I think it is ok.

It is similar as in any academic department. I think that optimal state is when people who are good in research and teaching can concentrate on this tasks as much as possible. And when the bureaucracy and administrative tasks are left for others.

It is alright if somebody does not want to be involved in such things.

12:41 PM

It is probably not very accurate parable, since SE site is not the same thing as a mathematical department. (We certainly do not have possibility to hire somebody to be a moderator or to do some administrative tools.)

But if there are users who are willing to take care of "administrative site" and if it helps some other users to concentrate on contents, that is definitely a good thing.

Sorry for the digression from the original topic, although it is a bit related.

Where things get dicey is when those that do not want to be involved, will start lecturing on how things should be done. Usually based on little prior thought and a misunderstanding of the underlying circumstances.

Unfortunatly this is pretty frequent on SE and at universities too.

What I am getting at is that I might disagree with somebody very strongly on meta (or even consider their suggestions on meta and their "administrative actions" harmful to the site) and still appreciate their valuable answers.

Yes, I can see that.

To phrase it another way: I will take completely differently a rant against closing or deleting questions (or whatever meta topic) from a new user with 100 rep points and from a user who has contributed a lot of contents to the site and has >50k reputation.

I know that reputation is not everything, but it is a rough measure which usually correlates with the users experience with the site and the length of their involvement here.

Me too. But possibly the other way around. :-)

12:48 PM

I was already criticized for this:

in Reopen? Undelete? Close? Delete?, Jan 27 at 15:57, by Arthur Fischer

@MartinSleziak The only thing that somewhat offended me was the implicit reputation worship. Taken to the extreme, we would virtually never vote to close any question.

I mentioned there that some high rep users vote to leave some question open. I should probably have written "experienced users", which would express better my intentions.

But experience and reputation usually correlate.

It seems that I digressed to several marginally related topics.

It was inetresting to discuss this.

Perhaps I will try to face the heat outside to do some shopping.

If I may ask, you are in some European country?

I am in Slovakia (Central Europe), we have above 30 degrees Celsius here.

Although I found in some older chat:

in Tagging, Jan 30 at 22:47, by quid

Yes, let us continue another time @MartinSleziak (same timezone here).

In any that case, have a nice afternoon!

And before I forget - thanks for the reply on the "downvotes room".

2 hours later…

2:59 PM

Sorry for the abrupt stop; I did not yet leave but only got distracted. Yes, I am in Central Europe too. Now leaving for real. See you @Martin !

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