I flagged the question, but in case this gains attention faster: I think we need a grown-up. In any event, I'm disengaging (which I should have done earlier---sorry), have attempted to clean up anything that I said that might have been out of line, and apologize for anything that I have done to exacerbate the situation.

@AlexanderGruber Most likely you've noticed (AFAIK all meta posts go to the mod inbox), but still I'll mention that this recent post on meta is related to the same post: Should we discourage bounties that encourage “clever” but unclear answers?

Hello, I am new here. I flagged this post - math.stackexchange.com/a/12868 - as a link only answer via a custom mod message. The flag was marked "helpful", but it doesn't seem like anything happened. Could any mod please explain? Thanks

(actually the answer below that answer is also technically a "link-only answer")

@GaurangTandon I see why you flagged it, hence I marked it as helpful. But, besides the link, the answer also contains the (correct, as far as I know) value of the resistance, thus it's not actually totally link-only. Apart from that, the question is off-topic and bad. I'm giving the community some time to disagree, but I expect the question to be deleted in the not-too-distant future.

okay

thanks!

You're welcome.

@DanielFischer I think this is a really nice question: math.stackexchange.com/questions/12863/…

I accept it's about physics but if the equation for adding resistors in parallel was added to the question it can be applied maths

It think there's a really nice application of the Euler product / Zeta function to arrive at the answer.

@ProducerofBS It's just a paste of an xkcd strip. That doesn't make a good question. The physical question from the xkcd question may not be uninteresting, but that's a different matter.

@DanielFischer you're the boss

Sorry to inject myself, the answers are not worth much either. Close to "link only"

@ProducerofBS You can make a good question of that idea.

@DanielFischer I get why we're against "lazy" cut and paste of xkcd comics

@XanderHenderson Unfortunately, I think @DanielFischer went overboard on deleting relevant comments, protecting culprits, and locking the post altogether to prevent users from voting up or down, to delete, or to close. In essence, @Daniel, I think your use of your powers to help save the given question and to make gimusi feel better when to far.

@amWhy I'm satisfied---it would be nice if people could vote on the question, but I am not sure that further commenting will do much, and the back-and-forth editing really needed to stop (I mean, seriously... the correct verb is "differentiate" not "derive"... I don't know why gimusi though that changing the verb made any difference to the substance of the question)

as to gimusi his or herself, I don't really care if they feel shamed or admonished (they are clearly incapable of that)

Of course, the lesser angel of my nature would like to see that user punished, but I don't think that it would do anything in the long term---they are clearly incapable of understanding why what they do draws so much criticism

Hopefully, they'll just get bored and go away eventually.

I am more or less satisfied with the current state of the world (at least, regarding that particular question).

@XanderHenderson I'm pretty much okay, save for the deletion of my reality-based, honest comments to gimusi below their answer. The thing is, a lock is almost always temporary, and can be unlocked at any time, with no notification to those involved. I'd like to see users shut down as quickly as mods seem often to censor me and remove my contributions.

That is understandable and entirely fair; however, I'm not entirely sure what was removed. I removed a few of my own comments (they weren't really about the math, and were mostly me being frustrated at gimusi), and I suspect that at least some of the deleted comments were in response to those, hence mod-deletion seems reasonable.

In any event, I'm washing my hands of that question. I am frustrated that gimusi decided to make it so radioactive, but, as far as I can tell, what can be done has been done.

I'd also like the moderators to take seriously our suspicions that gimusi has one or two sockpuppet accounts. At least three of my comments below gimusi's answer were removed. None were offensive. So I'm glad the censorship did not affect you, Xander, nor any user, really, except for me, as any and all traces of my perspective on the question have been removed. Seems treating me and my voice poorly doesn't strike mods as problem. They seem all too ready to silence me and erase anything

@amWhy I would rather have expected gimusi to complain since they had the most comments deleted. Anyway, the comments I deleted were in part just obsolete, in part they were becoming personal, none of them were suggesting improvements to the question or requesting clarification. Since we don't have a lock that just prevents posting further comments, there's some collateral damage when a post has to be locked. So temporarily one can't vote on that post.

I can understand that some of my comments were/became obsolete. I don't think I was becoming personal. Perhaps in one comment? In any case, the "lock" of the post allows it, and gimusi's answer to remain, untouched, which leaves it out of the realm of community responses, doesn't allow the final delete vote on gimusi's answer,

@amWhy I locked only the question. One can still vote on the answers.

As far as I know, that should include delete votes.

@DanielFischer Gotcha! I was assuming that a post lock applied to edits to and votes, up or down, across the entire post. Thanks, for the clarification.

The entire post, but not the entire thread. You can't edit or vote on the question until tomorrow, but the answers still can be edited, commented, or voted on.

Of course, I now understand, @DanielFischer. Again, thanks for clarifying that.

np

@MartinSleziak thanks Martin, I'll just leave the discussion to the community.

Ok. Since it was actually related to your answer, I thought it was worth mentioning.

Especially since the question was discussed both here in crude very recently.

@MartinSleziak I appreciate it. I think it's a good meta question. I don't recall it having been brought up before.

@amWhy @Martin, this was discussed yesterday, both here and in the CRUDE chatroom.

Yes, I've noticed that this question was discussed in both rooms. The post on meta however is about slightly different issue, no the undeletion of the question: Should we discourage bounties that encourage “clever” but unclear answers?

It is related to Alexander Gruber's answer only because that particular bounty was mentioned there as an example.

I have to admit that it is rather unusual to offer a bounty and ask for answer avoiding using the letter "e".

In any case, I am probably just repeating stuff that was already clear anyway.

@MartinSleziak Yes, I understand. I hadn't noticed the requirement to answer the question without using the letter "e". I saw that mentioned in the meta post, but I might have missed Doug Spoonwood's request that for the bounty, don't use the letter "e".

Well, AFAIK the bounty messages are lost after the bounty expires (they are shown neither in the revision history nor in the timeline). But this was explicitly mentioned in this comment on Alexander's answer.

Even though I have no way of verifying whether it was indeed the case, I tend to believe the accuracy of that comment.

Which, as I see it, if that was part of Doug's absurd request, (or anyone placing a bounty on Doug's post, anyone answering in hopes of winning the bounty drops a notch in my respect for them.

So I still struggle with the fact that Alexander undeleted a question he answered which (had been deleted), for what purpose?

@amWhy We already spoke about this in CRUDE, but to reiterate, it is because I believe the question, while poorly written in its original form, had content that was worth preserving. Per user21820's suggestion, Mike Pierce rewrote it, and the remaining content was migrated.

I realize that. You never mentioned, and we never discussed, in CRUDE, that your answer was written in a manner (using no e's) as required by the bounty), which is an entirely off-topic/hardly mathematical criteria. So you were willing to play the game, focusing on avoiding the letter as much, if not more than, the quality of the answer you wrote. Tell me. Is it okay for me to ask someone, say, to solve an integral, without, say, using the letter e or i?

@amWhy I believe that's the question being discussed in meta. I don't believe there is a community consensus on it.

It's one thing to answer a question; it's another thing to answer a question without the use of any e's or t's, or with no equal signs.... That's gamey, belongs on PuzzleSE.

I don't know how I feel about game-y bounties. On one hand, I wouldn't want to see them being posed frequently. On the other hand, they present a unique challenge, and I did have fun writing an on-topic answer while under constraints.

That's why I haven't contributed to the discussion about them. I'm not sure of my position.

And, of course I note, that since the meta post was asked, you you've received at least 50% more upvotes on you game-y answer. Must feel good, given all the rep you've yielded from that question. If it works for you, how can you, in any sense of good faith, prevent the frequent posting of such Puzzles? It's okay for you, and maybe a friend to do, but not in general?

@amWhy Because I am concerned about the health and administration of this forum, not about my reputation points

So, @AlexanderGruber, you certainly can't complain if I ask a question in topological group theory, and offer a bounty, which excludes anyone with a username containing the letter "e"? Or asking a number theory question for only usernames with numbers in them that can answer...

(which I do not seek out, and continuously give away in bounties, anyway)

@amWhy I don't know, it's your rep, you can organize a bounty as you please, as I see it. But that is just my initial reaction to the idea. If you were to do that, it would be likely to increase the sense of urgency to coming to a consensus on that issue in the meta thread.

@amWhy Have you been following topological group theory lately, by the way?

To be honest, @AlexanderGruber If I were you, upon the posting of (or recognition of) the meta post, I would have changed the answer to CW. You retain what you feel you've earned, but explicitly make clear that "I'm not here to gain even more." But, whatever. You are free to grin widely to reap more from your crop.

@amWhy That would be a misapplication of CW. I never asked for that answer to suddenly become popular, though. The question I voted to undelete was not particularly high traffic. It is a biproduct of the migration suggestion from CRUDE, and the subsequent (somewhat unexpected) popularity of the revived question

Nonetheless, I appreciate the suggestion, and your concern for my public image.