@darijgrinberg Basically, you are asserting that if someone provides a good answer to a terrible question faster than the terrible question can be closed, then the question should stand?!

Historically, the advice has been "If you think that a good answer has been provided to a terrible question, then encourage the asker to improve their question. If they don't ask the improved question, then request a merge. But a good answer is not sufficient to keep a poor question from deletion."

@Did @user21820 @Lord_Farin @JoséCarlosSantos @rschwieb - DA through DK posted 10:40 - 11:3, each need 1 or 2 delete votes. Thanks.

@XanderHenderson not sure how merges are requested, but they aren't always possible

and a question that is clear isn't really terrible

the terrible ones are the ones where everyone has their own opinion on what is being asked

they're wasting people's time

@RRL All gone except DJ and DK.

I am in the camp that for a great answer to save a bad question, the answer should be jaw dropping or thereabouts. And even so, the answerer probably should edit the question into shape. It is not difficult. The bar is not very high.

Having said that, I'm undecided about removing older questions. I guess the point is to cull the weakest ones for some new askers use them as points of reference. OTOH standards back in the day were different, and applying rules retroactively is not without danger.

And, re: darijgrinberg's U1. The point of the undeletion was to counter the fact that the OP deleted the question themself, after getting an answer. It was definitely NOT the point that Bill would jump the gun and repost a variant of his answer to the near dupe. Sheesh.

@darijgrinberg Re: How mergers are requested. Simply by flagging the post and asking mods to do so. (OF course, it's up to the moderators to decide whether they merge the question.) As usually, you can find link to a more detailed information in the corresponding tag-info.

There were several occasions when suitability of merging was discussed here in chat first - before actually flagging and asking mods to merge.

@JyrkiLahtonen @RRL @rschwieb @XanderHenderson @Did: I request to close this bad question, because it is ridiculously misleading in claiming that the poofs given in the question are actually meaningful, when they are just nonsensical. Specifically, it makes zero mathematical sense to prove a^0 = 1 by appealing to a^m/a^m = a^(m−m), nor by appealing to a^(m+0) = a^m·a^0. This 'answer' is no better.

@JoséCarlosSantos: Forgot to ask you as well.

Still not fixed!

This post is genuinely hilarious, though. Is there a way to flag for "great post"?

@darijgrinberg Probably not exactly what you have in mind but: Is it ok to use bounty for rewarding an answerer? (And, of course, there is the planned Sponsor's Lounge.)

But this seems to be a digression from the topic of this room. I will just remind that there is also Math Meta Chat.

Although I see that the question you linked to - Using Visualization for Learning: $a^0=1$ - has three close votes and was mentioned in this room. So maybe it was a bit premature from me to say that it's off-topic in this room.

@user21820 It is closed now. And I have already voted to delete this one.

@JoséCarlosSantos Thanks!

@JyrkiLahtonen +1 this and the previous comment!

PSQ1, Terribly blatant PSQ2, PSQ3

PSQ4, PSQ5

PSQ6,LQ1, LQ2 has no answer and is useless and unintresting

Solve my PSQ 'cause FaceBook won't (The user did show an attemt to be fair, but its still generally uninteresting and all images)

Yet anoother PSQ

Yet anoother PSQ

and another

Also, this should probably be closed as a duplicate of this one that's 7 years older(or perhaps merged, though its answers have no approach the other's don't).

Same for this and this as dupicates of this older and more general question.

PSQ

@darijgrinberg I was not discussing a specific question. I was pointing out why your argument was specious. If you think that a question is not terrible, then argue that. Asserting that there are good answers is a distraction.

D1, D2, D3.

D4, D5, D6.

D7, D8, D9.

D10, D11, D12.

D13, D14.

@XanderHenderson I very much disagree. I think it's a soft question, but it's a very good example of a soft question. It's a question asking for help, in general, as to how to approach a problem. If the goal of the site is to educate people in how to solve mathematical problems, I think that this question should be required reading (not just because I posted an answer, I wrote a blog post on my website on this very topic a few years ago, and I keep linking it on a lot of questions).

There are currently 3 reopen votes on that question, this question, and I'd happy to cast the fifth one, if someone is convinced by my argument.

@AsafKaragila I agree. I think it is a difficult question to answer, but there are actually interesting things to say there. It is certainly the sort of thing that is more useful to know than whether some integral equals π or somesuch.

@AsafKaragila (In particular, I am glad that there is an answer explicitly disagreeing with the idea that the reasonable thing to try first is to look for a counterexample.)

@AndrésE.Caicedo (And also that it's not a reasonable approach to starting with "assume by contradiction".)

I agree, and I am a little confused because I thought I cast my reopen vote much earlier.

Must have just tabbed away before hitting the button.

@AsafKaragila Indeed, I hate it when people always start a proof by "Assume otherwise.", even when a direct proof would trivially work...

@user21820 Yes. Let me prove it to you... assume otherwise...

@AsafKaragila Har har... that's both a proof by example and proof by contradiction!

@user21820 :P

@user21820 Don't forget proof by authority.

@AsafKaragila Not really; it's just a proof by moderator.

@user21820 Trust me, I'm a logician and a doctor. It's a proof by authority.

Okay okay I should stop hijacking this chat-room with things less interesting than Morris Models.

@user21820 That's true. Those are very interesting.

delete 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

shouldn t math.stackexchange.com/questions/3023961/… be merged rather?

same for math.stackexchange.com/questions/3066116/… i guess

PSQ math.stackexchange.com/q/3114352/29335

@rschwieb I chose to edit that question. Basically because I liked Dietrich's answer, and wanted to take rescue action. I know that this type of interventions (admittedly somewhat contrived) are not universally approved.