Arg... I keep forgetting that editing a low quality post automatically advances you to the next question...

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: Books, sites, guides about mental arithmetic by hand and tricks? by Niraj Tulsyan on math.SE

How do you people interpret the closure by the OP of this (mathematically nonempty...) question, a few seconds after they were asked for some context and for their personal tries? Or is this a coincidence? (For those who can see deleted questions.)

@Did Perfectly innocent explanation could be that the OP's intention was to edit the question while deleted and then undelete it only after they are satisfied with the end result...? Although I am not sure whether it fits this case.

It should be added that the OP cannot edit a question while it is deleted. (Although it is possible for answers.) So if this was the plan, the OP soon found out that it does not work.

BTW thanks for engaging with the OP and trying to help him to get to the solution by themselves (or at least improve the post a bit).

@XanderHenderson Most definitely but do you think discussion of that and introducing code-words for pejoratives is entirely welcoming to the "donut-lovers" as you call them?

@MartinSleziak Indeed the situation evolved quite a bit there, with two actors doing mathematics and a third one trolling. In the end, it turns out that the question the OP wanted to see solved is not quite the one they asked, or, at least, that the question they are interested in can be formulated more simply (yet another advantage of requiring context, as we all know).

One thing I'd like to see is increase in use of chat. It is quite suited for back-and-forth exchanges and gradual clarification of a question. (But at the moment if the same question was posted in some chatroom, it would be much less likely seen than on main.)

Anyway, this seems to be a digression from the main purpose of this room - if we wish to continue discussion about this, we should do it elsewhere.

@GNUSupporter Thanks!

Consider voting on the following PSQ.

@ProducerofBS I have no interest in being welcoming to cranks. Such people are are typically hostile to those that disagree with them, especially when they have been shown to be demonstrably wrong.

Engaging with cranks rarely leads to any kind of progress, and tends to give the impression (to outsiders) that there is controversy or uncertainty where it does not exist.

See, for example, the damage caused by anti-vaxers and evolution-deniers.

I should also note that, if you bothered to read the entire conversation, you would probably find that everyone involved basically holds the opinion that I just outlined, and that most of that conversation was a joke.

I see no reason to introduce "code-words" as a way of trying to be secretive. Instead, I see it as a massive joke.

A joke, I might add, born out of the frustration felt by people here at being constantly attacked for trying to improve the overall quality of the site, an effort which is often actively discouraged and disrupted by the very cranks that are being discussed.

Note: on the question I most recently linked, in a comment, the OP (asker) showed their work, which I have now edited into the question. Hence, I've retracted my close vote.

I think that this should be reopened.

@XanderHenderson It may be a joke but in the context of the discussion taking place at the time there's a danger of it coming across like a joke at somebody's expense. Nobody's attacking you for trying to improve the quality of the site (at least not me). I'm asking if it's healthy to call other users derogatory names while so doing. I'm expecting the answer to be "No - it's neither healthy nor necessary, and in fact it breaks site policy and should be reported"...

...but it's not for me alone to answer that, it's the opinion of the community that matters.

Robert Frost: You yourself use a questionable name to name yourself. So you're hardly in a position to fault the use of terms like BS, nut, crank. So be an example, because if you call yourself and your work BS, what have you called others and their work? I could post the answers to that question to meta as a separate question, and ask whether your participation on CRUDE, on META, and/or elsewhere has been healthy.

@XanderHenderson To me, it sounds like a post for META: Help explain to others why given some finite sequence of some say, five or six elements, "guess" the sequence are considered unclear, or .... I.e., Not really appropriate for a question on MSE, I think, but moreso as a meta question.

@XanderHenderson But I'm willing to listen, if you have a different take on the question you link.

@amWhy I adopted this name to as a reaction to its use being tolerated by you and other users of the room, which should not have happened.

@ProducerofBS That is a blatant lie. I never tolerated the name! I can go back and find the comments in which I tried to convince you to change your user name, to not disrespect yourself, and your only answer: I can't yet for a month. That month is over, @Robert Frost. You are the one choosing to call yourself by the name in which you seem to agree that you produce bologna sandwiches.

@quid, Any other MSE mod? I was just accused of tolerating a name I never tolerated, a name I objected to quite explicitly. I think lies are just as offensive as any word such as "nut", "crank", because they misrepresent reality.

We can start here, @Producer

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/2165/2018/3/28

Specific comments of my objection to the username Producer of BS can be seen in the pinned posts to the right.

@XanderHenderson Did you see this on meta, where the question belongs?

@ProducerofBS what specifically are you referring to?

@amWhy Yeah, I totally grok the idea that the question should be on meta (and, indeed, it is being discussed there, as well). However, I do think that it is reasonable to have a sort of higher level question that basically reads "If I have a sequence, how do I find the next term?" with some answers that explain why it is is basically hopeless.

@amWhy I saw that you objected to the name. I think what PBS wanted to say is that nobody objected at the very moment when he was called a "producer of BS" (before adopting that name). I don't know where or if he was called that (I did not find it by a cursory search) and what the context might have been. I hope my comment above will lead to a clarification.

That being said, it basically presents like a question about mathematics (with, perhaps, some light editing), and therefore seems to belong better on the main site than on meta.

With the bonus side effect that one can link similar questions to it as duplicates (which is impossible with meta, right?)

Given your reaction @amWhy I agree that the description of the situation is misleading. I would stop short of calling it a lie, since strictly "nobody did object at the time RF was called a PBS originally" is compatible with "amWhy objected after RF changed their name to PBS"

To be clear, I do not know if the first is true yet, I assume it is for the sake of argument.

@ProducerofBS I'm not sure what you want. Cranks (and their behaviour) are toxic. It is "not nice" to let cranks spread their toxicity.

It is fine to be nice until some starts drawing on the bathroom walls. At that point, the vandal should be called out.

@amWhy Perhaps if the title were changed to "Given a finite sequence, how can we find the next term?" it would be better?

On the other hand, the answer proposed by @stewbasic is an appropriate answer to a meta question

@quid I appreciate your thoughts and input. I don't recall every seeing the description "producer of BS." It was not in CRUDE. It may have been on a question or an answer? of PBS, but PBS never provided a link to where specifically. All I am aware of is PBS's claim that Did referred to him as a PBS. To me it remains a claim. The bottom line is, my entire and my only conversation with PBS was encouraging them to change their name, because they weren't hurting anyone but themself, ...

...and that adopting a name that one considers offensive merely gives more power to the one that referred to the name/description in the first place.

@quid What was said was that the name (or name calling) was being tolerated by" me and other users of the room. That's just not true.

@quid @amWhy I believe that the term "Producer of BS" was first coined by Did here.

I got that link from one of the bullet points in PBS's meta post.

By "tolerate", I guess that PBS is simply saying that folks here don't seem to mind much that this kind of terminology is used to refer to users on the main site - a point that seems to have been raised quite frequently during the recent discussions surrounding tensions and CRUDE.

@quid Ultimately, it is up to you moderators chill the rhetoric that we see here - or not. There are a lot of passionate (sometimes over-passionate) folks on the internet; there's no reason to think that the rhetoric will tone itself down.

@MarkMcClure thanks. That ought to be the place. Not sure why I did not find it.

Ahh, turns out, a search for "producer" does not find "producers" that's why. (And it was quite a bit more than "two days" before a comment that said it was two days ago.)

@quid Sure!

@XanderHenderson What do you think of this question?

@MarkMcClure: Regardless of the appropriateness of the terms, I think you need to face the issue that has been adequately explained many times over: Pseudomathematicians are toxic to the mathematical community. (Here pseudomathematics is defined exactly as pseudoscience.)

And it is precisely this group that has generated one of the biggest fires both on Math SE and Math Meta.

When we are all in explicit agreement on this, then we can talk about how best to deal with them. But no it cannot be in the same manner as dealing with ordinary mathematics students.

I stand by every single word in my comment, which you said you found helpful:

so i just deleted my nonsense answer on a closed off-topic soft question (again) but i dont know if that deletion just sits in a mod queue now, and they ban me as soon as they see it (again)

@user21820 Yes, I understand you feel that way (strongly) and I largely agree. At the end of the day, though, I just don't know it's worth the stress on everybody. We aren't fighting for vaccination or anything close to like that. We're not voting for fields medals or tenure or deciding on publications. We're just talking about a bit of math and PBS is just some dude who like to play with the Collatz sequence on a computer. Point out he's wrong and move on.

@MarkMcClure actually, we are not inactive in this regard.

i dont think we need to cuss out users we dont like the content of. if we just downvote/close/delete that should be clear enough

@quid I believe that and I'm sure it's a challenge. Thanks!

@MarkMcClure Frankly, you clearly do not understand the pseudomathematician mindset. They do not just play with some open conjecture. They also post a lot of mathematical non-sense that only serve to mislead others.

if that is an issue arxiv would have shut down by now. the way they deal with it is to ignore it

Do you have any idea how many such non-sensical posts no longer exist due to the diligence of users here who have to waste their time to read non-sense just to verify that it is indeed non-sense?

if someone claims to prove the riemann hypothesis it is easy to identify as nonsense

@PeterSheldrick And that is why arXiv still cannot replace the peer-reviewed journals many of which are hiding behind a humongous paywall.

they provide a way to upload articles and link to them - they are doing a good job with that

@user21820 Oh yes, there are some quite determined folks out there. I get letters in my office mailbox sometimes!.

there are like a couple dozen proofs of RH on arxiv each month. nobody links to them and they just get ingonred

@PeterSheldrick Show me. Please tell me what is the nonsense in this claimed proof of RH.

@PeterSheldrick I was not talking about RH, by the way. I was talking about pseudomathematicians posting non-sense on Math SE and other SE sites that mislead students. I can show you explicit examples, but I am surprised you do not know it happens often.

Often about Cantor's theorem or the incompleteness theorem. Always about something they themselves cannot understand but feel they can just by handwaving.

yeah it happens, but shielding students from internet junk is a lost cause

@PeterSheldrick I happen to think it is not a lost cause (yet) for Math SE.

We have the tools and the human resources. We just need the green light.

And seriously I would be interested if you have an easy way to identify that purported RH proof as nonsense.

@user21820 you just made that RH proof an issue by linking to it

@PeterSheldrick I knew the irony, but I can't help it because I was immediately reminded of that one by your comment that it was easy...

=P

Just what if it is valid?

=P =P =P

probably not

@quid ^^

@MarkMcClure It is an interesting problem, though I'm not sure that it is a great question. In any event, the "long way 'round" looks rather... um... long.

I'm not sure what a satisfactory answer would look like.

@XanderHenderson Each term in the covariance matrix can be expressed as an integral with respect to the uniform measure on the Sierpinski triangle. Those types of integrals can be evaluated using self-similarity of the measure, as done in my answer to this question.

The direct covariance itself, though (basically the off-diagonal terms in the matrix), is easily seen to be zero. I rather wonder if that was the actual question that the OP saw.

:4449903 The term "lie" implies an intention to deceive, and there isn't one. Since Did linked the question and you voted to close the linked question, it would be reasonable to think you had read the above message and chose to tolerate the language used, although not entirely beyond the bounds of probability that you didn't. If you say you didn't then I'll take your word for it.

@MarkMcClure Oh, that isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

@ProducerofBS 99.9% of what I vote to close is closed via my visit to the close review and/or my own direct perusal of the site contents. To infer that users of CRUDE agree daily, weekly, or even just once a month to synchronize our votes is a lie, one that you clearly are suggesting, and which is indeed unreasonable to suggest. You are either lying, or you are very oblivious to the independence of every user on CRUDE. Please refrain from such insulting assumptions of some...

sort of conspiracy against you. Truth is, you don't really matter enough, nor do I, nor do most users, for anyone to bother with trying to fabricate some conspiracy against.

@ProducerofBS Yes, and you willfully decided to conveniently "forget" the length I went to convince you that renaming yourself based on one and only one comment in the entire time you've been on this site was a bad choice and was (and remains) self-demeaning. That that was not enough to convince you is your problem, not mine. Fallacy of over-generalization. Look that up.

A reminder that Be Nice applies to chat.

@PaulWhite Thanks!

@PaulWhite Indeed; thanks!

Thanks to Paul White's recent pointer to the Be Nice model page, I actually read it for the first time. I'm happy to say that I never needed to before. :)

It makes some points that are relevant to recent conversations, specifically:

* Your tone should match the way you'd talk in person with someone you respect and whom you want to respect you

* Avoid: Name-calling. Focus on the post, not the person. That includes terms that feel personal even when they're applied to posts (like "lazy", "ignorant", or "whiny")

Now, you might find yourself interacting with or referring to someone who you don't respect but, according to the policy, your tone should nonetheless indicate respect.

You might refer to a number of "crank posts" by the same user, and I think that's OK. That doesn't make it OK to refer to the person as a crank - again, per the site's policy.

I.e. math.stackexchange.com/help/be-nice

Ya'll will be happy to know that the "be nice" policy says nothing about downvotes or deletion and there are certainly other policies that encourage appropriate use of these moderation tools. I do suspect, though, that fastidious attention to the "be nice" policy would help improve impressions of this room.

@amWhy Yes! I think that's what I linked.

Just don't call me a bumpkin because I say "Ya'll" - I am from the South, after all. :)

@MarkMcClure Hear, hear.

@MarkMcClure And those whose posts are closed, reopened, deleted, undeleted, downvoted, upvoted, if they ask politely about why, without accusations, you won't hear any complaints from me. That is: Be nice is a two-way (multi-directional) street. (err, it's a network of bidirectinal streets, which requires that all participants "be nice"! Hear. Hear.

@amWhy The policy does apply equally yes. My impression, though, is that it applies separately to each individual. It is possible that one individual in a conversation adheres to the policy but that others do not. Walking away and, if necessary, flagging is probably the best response. In any event, the behavior of other parties does not alleviate one from their responsibilities.

@MarkMcClure I agree. Just thought it important that everyone acknowledge their responsibilities, not just users frequenting CRUDE, but also the users upset by non-rude, nicely placed downvotes, close votes, and delete votes. You emphasized that those voting to downvote, close, delete must remember to be nice. I agree. But I added what you neglected to say, that it is incumbent on recipients, as well, to be nice.

@amWhy Yes, there are plenty of folks outside of CRUDE who get a bit unscrewed at times - and often due to a simple lack of understanding of how the site works. I don't mean to imply otherwise. I guess I'm addressing this room mainly because it's populated by grownups who've been around for a while, who know how the site works and, who know some mathematics. Seems like a good group to talk to. :)

@MarkMcClure Okay, I'll say no more, because I figured you'd want or need to add a thirteenth comment after Paul White's appropriate, concise, and sufficient link. I'll say no more. Have a "nice" day!

@amWhy Well, this is chat after all. :)

And you have a great one, too!

@MarkMcClure No problem.