@BillDubuque I'm thinking hard about this. My guess as to what motivates certain types of users can only be based on how I see them react to the stimuli of low hanging fruits that obviously don't pose an intellectual challenge to them. FWIW I would definitely place you in camp 5 as opposed to camp 3. For example, you do take an active role hunting dupes.
Thinking back, the site stopped being a pleasant place when some users insisted that we allow homework questions. It was not obvious at the time, and had appealing plus sides, such as us competing in size with the smaller of the original trilogy sites.
@JyrkiLahtonen That seems to be another example of projection on your part. Based on remarks here (and elsewhere) there are surely many users (including me) whose primary motivations for answering questions has little to do with "posing an intellectual challenge to them". The same is true for those who love to teach in universities. Rarely is such teaching "intellectually challenging". But it is not so rare that such teaching is (highly) beneficial to (mathematical) society.
What makes this site different is gamification and its evil side effects. But many users have no interest in playing the game. "The site stopped being a pleasant place" not because of homework questions but - rather - because the evil gamification successfully hooked many users on the rep drug. Most of the major problems here would not exist if gamification was abolished.
The platform - as designed - would be better named smackexchange (smack is slang for drugs - heroin). The rep drug has probably ravaged the virtual intellectual community more than the heroin / fentanyl epidemic has ravaged real-world communities.
@XanderHenderson Teaching and learning. Yes, in my opinion gamification does far more damage than good (based on my experiences on gamified vs. non-gamified math virtual communities)
@BillDubuque Jeff Atwood said that SE is a Wiki first. Teaching is a side effect. Not the goal. And, in my opinion "giving a man a fish" is not "teaching". And, rest assured, I'm not pointing fingers at you with that.
@JyrkiLahtonen What truly matters is not one random opinion but rather how the site ends up being used, and the impact that has on the (mathematical) world.
@XanderHenderson I'm not sure where you are going so why don't you tell us what you believe to be the "primary goal of MSE". Note that to me teaching and learning does include organization of mathematical knowledge.
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.
@BillDubuque In too many conversations with you, I have responded to you only to be very condescendingly told that I have misinterpreted your intent. I do not wish to repeat that mistake. In order to keep from repeating that mistake, I am trying make sure that I clearly understand you, first. If you are unwilling to nail your colors to the mast, then I have no desire to be suckered into yet another unproductive exchange. Good day.
@XanderHenderson I have mo clue what you are talking about (re: "suckered"). I see nothing of the sort above. So it's ok for you to ask others about their opinions, but when they ask about yours that is "suckering"? I can't make any sense of that. How can any constructive discussion occur with an attitude like that?
@JyrkiLahtonen I don't think Jeff's opinions have had much (in any) influence on how we use this platform (esp. given that we have often ignored SE "recommendations"). That's why I consider it to be random. I'd put much more weight on opinions of users that actually have significant experience using this site.
@JyrkiLahtonen It is impolite and misleading to write star-baiting remarks implicitly implying that I wrote "a free homework is something worth striving for" when no one said anything of the sort.
I have no desire to star-bait here. You are welcome ignore Atwood. A point is that there are other places (so I have heard), where homework help is the norm. The old usenet had several such, and I don't think such services are an endangered species. SE was originally meant to emphasize quality and expertise, but seems to be giving up. May be a site emphasizing expertise is not economically viable?
At least I'm getting a vibe like that from some posts by the CMs in MetaSE. This makes me very sad. For I don't think SE can compete with YahooAnswers and Reddit.
If SE asks nicely I could agree not to vote close posts by newbies. Dupes or not. AS LONG AS THEY SIMULTANEOUSLY IMPLEMENT CHECKS CONTROLS on the FGITWs.
@JyrkiLahtonen As you must surely know by now, my opinion on organizing the posts you deride as "homework" is via duplicate closure / deletion. This would work generally if more folks helped out.
I have been contemplating writing such a proposal to the network wide meta. Probably not a new idea. It doesn't seem like a good idea to do it now. Doing it at our meta is an exercise in futility. Sure, our meta-activists might go for it, but the FGITWs hardly ever come to meta. In a way I see why they are reluctant - they are unfamiliar with the meta culture.
@BillDubuque Yes, I know of your efforts. In spite of our differences of opinion of how close a duplicate will be required I very much appreciate your work there. I have been trying to stay out of your way there lately.
And, I'm not ruling out the possibility that I am projecting. I feel the way I feel. Very strongly. And I am not alone.
@JyrkiLahtonen If we delete dupes whose answers are all dupes (as is often the case) then this goes a long way towards cleaning up low quality FGITW answers. Whether or not this will discourage such remains to be seen. Occasionally I try to encourage some high-rep FGITWs to refrain from answering dupe FAQs and instead join organizational efforts (with limited success). Maybe more peer pressure would help. If they are motivated by rep (as you suspect) then they may respond to (more) peer pressu
Cannot hurt to try, @BillDubuque . Alas, I have been so riled up about this that at the moment I have probably severed my chances of communicating this constructively.
@JyrkiLahtonen Recall my old meta proposal on standardized boilerplate meta comments. Maybe with help from the community we could devise a tactful comment that would help in this regard.
