CURED - 2019-03-27

Santana Afton

00:49

This question was closed for lack of context -- some context was added and I voted to reopen.

Saad

01:47

@darijgrinberg You said “cheap context for the deletion sharks”? Twice? Then cheap contexts don't deserve respectful and sincere reopen votes.

2

@user21820 D1 to D15 all gone

@RRL DA to DL all gone except for DF, which will be done by Roomba

darij grinberg

02:24

i care about the content, which in the case of this question includes 2 apparently well-written and useful answers

2

i have brought the question itself to the level of the answers quality-wise, by adding context which may actually be helpful (we aren't expecting context to always be helpful, otherwise askers could solve their own questions).

SmokeDetector

03:35

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, no whitespace in answer, repeating characters in answer (264): How to find the images of u and v under T? by aaaaaaaaaa on math.SE

Saad

03:59

PSQ

user131753

04:57

It is interesting to note that as soon as I cast the final undelete vote on the question which @darijgrinberg pointed out above, I got a downvote by some person from the CRUDE room. In fact, I know who that is, as I was closely following his reputation. This is not the first time this happened. Can something be done regarding this @AlexanderGruber?

2

Alexander Gruber

05:44

@user170039 flag and we'll look into it

Saad

06:08

@AlexanderGruber If you have time, would you like to take a look at this comment just a few lines above your reply? Thanks.

user21820

07:19

@AlexanderGruber: Hmm, there's also a troll that randomly downvotes my answers for no apparent reason (on old threads), many times now, but I don't know who. Are moderators able to see who downvoted me to figure out whether it really is a single troll as I suspect? If not, I guess there's nothing I can do except ignore the trolls.

D1, D2, D3.

D4, D5, D6.

D7, D8, D9.

D10, D11, D12.

D13, D14, D15.

C1, C2, C3,

C4, C5, C6.

user334732

07:57

Hi, would somebody with sufficient rep to see deleted questions please be so kind as to find the link for a question of mine containing the phrase "eventually monotonic"?

@user170039 which was the question?

YuiTo Cheng

@user334732 Just scrolled to the bottom of this page

user334732

@YuiToCheng ok I'll take a closer look. I searched 5+ pages and I thought it was more recently than that.

@YuiToCheng Sorry I'm may be doing something stupid but I can't find it. Do you have the link?

YuiTo Cheng

@user334732 Can't you see the "deleted recent question"?

user334732

@YuiToCheng they only stay there a while. THat link's now empty

YuiTo Cheng

@user334732 Then I can't help you...

user334732

08:06

@YuiToCheng yes, I think 10k rep is needed

user21820

@user334732: You can ask a moderator in the Mods' Office; they can see deleted questions. Even 10k users cannot search for deleted questions, but can only search for deleted questions posted by themselves.

user131753

@user334732: You can check my profile page. But I would suggest you to leave it.

user131753

@darijgrinberg It is probably worth mentioning that this question was deleted again.

user334732

@user170039 that question looks fine to me

user21820

@user334732 It was modified to put words into the asker's mouth. Check the history.

user334732

08:13

@user21820 an answer?

@user170039 as do a couple of other questions I scanned

user21820

@user334732 Sorry, I mistook you to be referring to the one user170039 was talking about.

user334732

@user21820 no, I think the mistake was mine.

user131753

@user334732 So do I. That's why I voted to undelete. But clearly the opinion of the people who voted to delete the question differ from mine.

user21820

6 hours ago, by Saad

@darijgrinberg You said “cheap context for the deletion sharks”? Twice? Then cheap contexts don't deserve respectful and sincere reopen votes.

This links to the revision history.

user131753

I think it is now a high time for mod to get involved in this issue.

user131753

08:15

Let's wait and see.

user21820

But you didn't, instead you reverted the question to the fake version.

→ 4 messages moved to Trash

YuiTo Cheng

10:36

I think this HNQ has been asked many times in different forms before...

José Carlos Santos

11:04

Is it just me, or is this PSQ below the usual level of badness?

user21820

12:23

@JoséCarlosSantos Sadly, it seems rather frequent recently. More and more people have realized that there are users who will post full solutions to copy-pasta, and worse still other users who try protect the full solutions.

@YuiToCheng Not to disagree, but since the ratio of poor PSQs to good duplicates is on the order of 1000:1, I personally won't close/delete good duplicates, although there are some users who have their own reasons for wanting run-of-the-mill duplicates merged or deleted.

YuiTo Cheng

13:10

@user21820 I'm fine with this being a good duplicate; what I object to is it becomes an HNQ.

user21820

@YuiToCheng Are you aware that once the question is marked as duplicate it will no longer show up on the HNQ? If you find a duplicate target, you can vote to close as duplicate, and if the asker agrees it immediately gets closed.

GNUSupporter 8964民主女神地下教會

cv-pls integration Too Broad How to create 3D visual graph of a triple integral function‭ - Just Chi‭ 2019-03-27 13:19:26Z

cv-pls physics Unclear Find stagnation points and minimum pressure points at the surface of the cylinder.‭ - Sam‭ 2019-03-27 13:06:20Z

YuiTo Cheng

@user21820 I can't find an exact duplicate... Still, since this is a frequently asked question, can we tag it faq according to this thread?

user21820

@YuiToCheng That's a good idea, I don't see why not, since the answers are rather good. So now it becomes duplicate target. =)

@GNUSupporter8964民主女神地下教會 Seems more suitable for Physics SE, though it's unclear anyway.

Bill Dubuque

13:50

@Saad Please define "cheap" context.

Bill Dubuque

14:00

@darijgrinberg Post has now been locked in deleted state by a "moderator" (asaf). If this continues you may wish to open a meta posts about such.

What's worse the post was voted for deletion twice by both @user21820 and @Saad This seems to indicate that there is no respect for aforementioned compromises. So it looks like we will have to open another chat room to work against these abuses. This is not the best solution solution but you leave us no choice.

user21820

@BillDubuque Neither @Saad nor I agreed on any sort of compromise including putting words into asker's mouth.

2

Furthermore, as I said before, why can't the good answers just be posted with new good questions? I would gladly upvote them both.

Bill Dubuque

@user21820 If another rooms is opened it will attract not only users like I who seek reasonable compromis, but also rep-hounds etc,. There are many more of those than there are CRUDE folks. Such a battle would not be won by CRUDE. Please consider compromising.

These exceptions are so rare in the CRUDE scheme of things that it makes no sense to fight for them

user21820

@BillDubuque I've read your suggestions before, but they aren't clear enough to me. How rare is rare? What is your suggested limit? And who is to be counted as "respected user"?

2

Bill Dubuque

@user21820 Since that discussion over the past few weeks there have only been a few cases compared to hundreds of questions closed and deleted. That meets my definition of "rare"

user21820

How about this: If the effort of copy-pasting into a new good question is considered too tiring, I can offer to do it myself and post as CW giving credit to the original poster if they don't want to do it themselves. No mathematical content is lost that way, so will you accept this?

2

@BillDubuque I would still like a limit on "rare" and a definition of "respected user", so that everyone can decide whether they like the compromise. (I'm not against a compromise.)

user131753

14:28

@BillDubuque I don't think that will be a good idea. The activity of such a chatroom may be viewed as being a part of some sort of "anti-CRUDE" agenda. I am not saying that this is the only possible viewpoint but it is surely one possible viewpoint.

user131753

@BillDubuque Also this comment does not sound friendly (I apologize if I misread it). Instead of doing things on our own it will be better to handle the matter to the mods and if that doesn't work then to the CM's.

Bill Dubuque

@user170039 How you view the actions of those whose political views differ from yours is beyond my control. But I would hope at the least that you would make some effort to sincerely understand them. For without that there is no hope for compromise. As I've said many times above, I've greatly compromised my principles but I see no reciprocal compromises by some CRUDE members.

@user21820 As I said, before, just let it be in the rare cases that a CRUDE action is reversed.

If someone starts abusing this then we can invite them here to discuss it.

darij grinberg

15:16

The exceptions are not rare.

This is hardly the first question that gets deleted despite good and useful answers.

And I am hardly the first user to point it out.

I am just not active in calc/analysis, where most of this action happens.

Putting words in people's mouths is better than deleting

user21820

@darijgrinberg Is it better than re-posting with a new good question? I've said this so many times but those who are against deletion never seem to take it up. I've even offered to help in this regard, but still no takers.

darij grinberg

reposting would require merge action on the side of the supermods

user21820

Martin Sleziak has done this many times, and it has been well received.

darij grinberg

which I have already requested more than enough

but it looks like there is no alternative here

user21820

@darijgrinberg No it doesn't; the user who posted the original answer can be informed to just copy-paste the contents. And I'd support it if mods can help to do it quicker.

And why don't you explicitly address what (if anything) is wrong with my offer, then I can understand your thinking better.

Bill Dubuque

15:24

@darijgrinberg When I wrote "rare" above I refer only to the cases where a CRUDE action was reversed - not all the cases where questions with good answers have been deleted.

darij grinberg

it's not copypasting the question that is tiring; i don't want to burden answerers or mods with moving their content

anyway, now i've done it ( math.stackexchange.com/questions/3164641/… )

also, remind me: does CWing a question make all the answers CW too? because i shouldn't be getting points for this repost...

user21820

@darijgrinberg And I've upvoted it. I think CW questions can only have CW answers, but not the other way around. I don't see what's wrong with you getting tiny points for making a better question to pin the answers to.

Martin Sleziak

@darijgrinberg Yes, if the question is CW, all answers become automatically CW.

darij grinberg

thx, i guess i'll repost under my own name then

or as anon-user, seeing that my browser keeps logging me out all the time anyway

Martin Sleziak

I suppose you have flagged the question - to ask the moderators for merging, right?

darij grinberg

15:28

yep

Bill Dubuque

In general, I think it is far easier for everyone to edit the original question. Only if the OP rejects the edit does one need to worry about creating a new question. Lilkely this will be rare since the OP is motivated by gamification to keep the question alive,

rschwieb

16:12

psq math.stackexchange.com/q/3164665/29335

rschwieb

16:33

@BillDubuque The proposed compromise as I understand it is that perhaps someone other than the OP can provide context to save a question. Astroturfing context would no doubt make contextless questions acceptable. But this superficial fix leaves the underlying ethical problem unaddressed: what if you're doing someone's homework? AFAIK the surest tool we have to discern a poster's good will in solving a problem is their own context.

2

I won't claim that third-party-context is always bad, but in this case it doesn't seem natural or warranted. The same "cheap context" would have been "quality context" if it had come from the user directly. Unfortuantely I'm late to the party here and I can't even tell if the user was engaged in the comments..

I don't know about anyone else, but that's what I rely upon context for. The mere presence of words in the post isn't the point.

Bill Dubuque

16:59

@rschwieb The compromise is simply to let the reversals be. They are very rare. Please give it a try an see how it goes. If we need to tweak it then we can discuss it as the need arises.

user21820

17:16

@BillDubuque Alright, I'm open to giving it a try if one tweak is made: it shouldn't be applied to questions from PSQ factories or questions that have an answer from PSQ farmers, so that there is no significant chance for permitting or supporting unethical behaviour (as per my previously stated pedagogical principle). Here "PSQ factories" means "users who repeatedly posts PSQs despite being told not to" and "PSQ farmer" means "users who repeatedly answer PSQs".

3

In other cases I can support moving content as I already offered.

rschwieb

17:30

@BillDubuque No, we've been over this before. I don't think anyone here would consider "people who get pushback give up if it doesn't work once" as any sort of compromise. I know you don't. I think there is a legitimate discussion to be had here about when third-party context could be used to make some closures unnecessary, though.

@darijgrinberg Is it? In theory you could astroturf context into every PSQ and we could keep them all. I'm guessing you don't want to keep them all though. It might be helpful to know how you distinguished that question from your run-of-the-mill PSQ. Can you elaborate on the why you felt it was worth saving?

Bill Dubuque

@rschwieb But I do. I have already greatly compromised in the hope that we can all work together (I now only vote to reverse CRUDE actions when there are already good non-dupe answers worth preserving, whereas in the past I would always reverse if I thought the question could lead to content that enriches the site). There is little to lose by giving it a try (vs. much to lose it we end up back with the old never-ending battles).

darij grinberg

17:48

@rschwieb I'm trying to keep the ones with good answers, not "them all".

Until a good answer comes up, close-and-delete-ASAP is the best course of action.

I think the myopic focus on questions (ignoring the existing answers) isn't doing this site a service.

Answers get cited sometimes! Even moving them might break some references.

rschwieb

@darijgrinberg OK! Thanks for clarifying for me.

Bill Dubuque

@darijgrinberg this is one of the major problems for me. Perhaps (far) more than anyone else, I build very large graphs linking to proofs, generalizations, specializations, etc. because I strongly believe this is one of the major sources of value this site offers over static texts. When these links are broken via deletions it wreaks havoc.

darij grinberg

yeah, particularly seeing that the notion of "context" isn't all that transparent

and it might at any moment get tightened and formerly tolerated questions get the CRUDE treatment

rschwieb

@BillDubuque I think perhaps the common ground we share is that we think everyone should reconsider where to cut their losses in unproductive back-and-forth. I know I wouldn't (and don't) participate when that much back and forth is involved.

darij grinberg

for example, is "I've tried induction and failed" context enough?

Bill Dubuque

17:53

@rschwieb Right, that's why I'm proposing to start with something very simple and refine it as need be. I think we are not very far from a working compromise.

rschwieb

@darijgrinberg If they wrote what induction they attempted, certainly, but if they just said "i tried (something)induction," then it's not clear there's any context.

At least then there's the point to say "here's where I'm at and I don't see how to link it to previous n"

Isn't part of the point of context (context beyond the context necessary to convey a complete problem statement) to indicate engagement? The difference between a homework mill and a forum where discussion happens is engagement, right?

Bill Dubuque

@rschwieb But SE is by design not for discussion (that certainly explains why this chat software is so horrendous)

rschwieb

@BillDubuque I think that statement is blurring the edges between too many statements. Clearly yes, some types of discussion are discouraged. But not productive on-topic discussion, as far as I'm aware.

Bill Dubuque

I think at some point in the very near future the matter of homework cheating will be moot, since by then all teachers will have found a way to deal with it.

rschwieb

Every question, solution, comment and vote is a mechanism to move discussion.

Bill Dubuque

18:07

@rschwieb I'd prefer a platform that better supports discussion, but this platform is not designed for such.

rschwieb

@BillDubuque Well, that may be, but being poorly designed for discussion and being "not for discussion" are very different things.

Bill Dubuque

Further, I think that when you try to deal with external matters like homework cheating here, you are only making matters worse, by giving (antiquated) teachers some false hope that their old outdated methods can still work a bit longer - when it would be much better for them to get out of the dark ages asap.

rschwieb

18:23

@BillDubuque Nobody is dealing with external matters. We're dealing with a very concrete internal matter: discouraging unethical use of the site. Teachers and their struggles with cheating are quite quite far outside of any considerations here. Certainly it is not an argument to start legitimizing the poorest posts.

RRL

@Saad @Lord_Farin @JoséCarlosSantos Most of D1-D16 posted by @user21820 Mon 3:27 require 1-2 additional votes.

Xander Henderson

18:39

@rschwieb I think that concerns about cheating and doing others homework for them are a bit of a red herring. I agree that MSE should not be a homework mill, but not out of any ethical concern. The issue is that routine exercises are unlikely to be of any long-term interest to anybody, and so they clutter up the Q&A, making legitimately interesting questions on related topics harder to find.

3

That is, homework questions are bad not because it is unethical for students to attempt to use this site to get their homework done for them, but because such questions are a poor fit for the format.

Bill Dubuque

@XanderHenderson And - by now - most of these routine exercises can be closed as (abstract) dupes, which is how I deal with them in my tags.

José Carlos Santos

@RRL Yesterday, I had already voted to deleted all of them up to (and including) D8. Then I ran out of deletions. All those that come after D8 are deleted now.

Bill Dubuque

18:56

@rschwieb I don't think it is wise to tie Q&A's here to external ethical matters. What readers do with the knowledge they acquire here is far beyond the scope of the site.

rschwieb

psq math.stackexchange.com/questions/3164926/…

@XanderHenderson I suppose there is an argument de-coupled from ethics why we shouldn't be a homework mill, but it is the most convincing argument to me, anyhow, and anyone else that finds the activity reprehensible.

@BillDubuque Is the absurdity of the statement "cheating on this site is an outside matter" not self-evident? I don't see how willful ignorance of a hard problem will increase the quality of the site at all.

@XanderHenderson I think using "but because such questions are a poor fit for the format" as justification sounds self-serving. At least, it might seem that way to those who chafe at getting fora guideline quotes.

Bill Dubuque

@rschwieb Would you also deny mathematical education to students who are in countries whose politics you disagree with? To those who wish to use mathematics to build weapons of mass destructtion?

Injecting ethics into such matters is a very thorny issue that it not worth broaching here, esp. when there are better ways to handle these matters that avoid such.

rschwieb

19:14

@BillDubuque Sorry, I cannot make that leap of illogic. By the way, are you saying you wish to knowingly support those who wish to use mathematics to build weapons of mass destruction? I mean, you are suggesting not to do so is bad so... ?

Bill Dubuque

@rschwieb No, my argument is that this site exists only to teach mathematics, not to teach ethics of science, academia, etc.

rschwieb

@BillDubuque Teaching ethics and striving to maintain an ethical community are completely different things.

Bill Dubuque

@rschwieb But the ethical matters you are concerned with are external to this site - having to do with how the knowledge gained here is used elsewhere.

rschwieb

@BillDubuque Explain how cheating on this site is an external matter.

Bill Dubuque

@rschwieb What precisely do you mean by "cheating on this site"?

rschwieb

19:24

@BillDubuque Employing math.SE to misrepresent ones abilities in an evaluation.

Bill Dubuque

@rschwieb Evaluation onsite or offsite?

rschwieb

Either, both, if you like (seems completely irrelevant to me)

I don't believe that inherently bad things become not bad if they happen outside. Seems like kind of an artificial distinction.

Bill Dubuque

As I argued above, how math knowledge gained here is applied in some external site should be of no concern to us. Attempting to do so (e.g. for ethics) opens up a big can of worms. Mathematics (and its teaching) works best when it is completely divorced from all external concerns (ethics, politics, religion or any other extra-mathematical field).

If you're interested in an SE site on such ethical matters why not propose it on area51? Many users here have no interest in entangling the site in such gnarly matters

rschwieb

19:47

Needless to say, the old "as long as the evil doesn't directly harm me, I am free to ignore or enable it" doesn't have much truck with me.

Nor do I confuse discussion of ethics about meta matters with ethics in mathematical questions. Lots of things in meta are "systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct" which is what ethics means, if you forgot. One cannot make decisions about removing/retaining content if one refuses to consider what the community has discussed as acceptable/unacceptable

darij grinberg

20:11

i'm getting the impression that there are at least 3 different interpretations of "off-topic" among the people who eagerly use this closing/deleting reason:

1. homework problem posted without work shown

2. uninteresting problem that "looks like" ugly homework

3. a question that misses legitimately crucial context (e.g., relying on nonstandard notation that must be defined, or a question that heavily depends on how a certain object has been defined in a class)

and i'm not sure if there is a majority who believes each of these reasons is a valid closing reason

@rschwieb seems to mostly be concerned with reason 1, while @BillDubuque is with reason 2

while reason 3 is arguably the one the closing reason fits the best, if taken literally

i'm surprised if askers aren't confused, because even i am

(this is all only tangential to the main point of contention that i am having, which is that some people here seem to enjoy deleting mathematically significant content; the babylonian confusion about what "off-topic" means is relevant even when a question has no answers)

(for what it's worth, i'm mostly annoyed with 2 and 3, but i understand that 2 is subjective, and 3 already has the "unclear what you are asking" reason made for it. i agree that 1 is worth fighting against, but not at the expense of deleting good content and scaring effort posters off. also, if "help vampires" is good language, then so is "deletion sharks".)

Bill Dubuque

@darijgrinberg That's not quite right for me. I am very open minded about questions. To me the primary purpose served by questions is to provide the spark that motivates teachers to contribute enriching content. Only very rarely do I vote to close as off-topic. I strive to handle FAQs via dupes

quid

@darijgrinberg the premise is false. I.e., generally "help vampires" is not considered as good language.

darij grinberg

(i also believe that 1 is a less clear-cut issue than many people here are believing, particularly when it is extended to non-homework questions. i can easily find questions in books i'm curious about that i have no idea how to even start solving. by your rules i couldn't post them.)

@quid: ok, good to know -- i recall learning this word from one of the SE sites, though i am not sure if it was this one.

ah, stackoverflow

quid

20:35

@darijgrinberg of course you could post them. You could say from which book they come, why you want to solve it/why you study that book, and some other thoughts you might have related to it. There is no rule that imposes that there needs to be a half-way solution. For example, if it is an exercise from a book and you read the relevant chapter carefully and you say so that describes an attempt that you made to solve it.

If you by contrast open a random book randomly look at some exercise and then conclude you have no idea, then post it this is maybe a problem (Yet even that's not clear if you at least specify the source with some care). But honestly it's not clear why it is necessary to allow for that.

Bill Dubuque

@rschwieb Nobody claimed that such ethical matters should be completely ignored. Rather the matter has to do with where those ethical concerns should be addressed.

Don Thousand

20:50

I've been getting a lot of downvotes on very old answers of mine, as well as new ones.

This is just one day, but I get a rep chart similar to this daily. Is this normal?

RRL

21:57

Close: PSQ1, PSQ2, PSQ3

Xander Henderson

22:36

@darijgrinberg Why couldn't you post such questions? As @quid points out, cite the book, explain why you are reading it, and why the question is hard. There are ways to provide context which don't involve providing an attempt.

In fact, I have often argued that an "attempt" is typically the very worst kind of context, and probably shouldn't be considered context at all in most cases. (That being said, the consensus seems to be that "attempts" are valid context, hence I typically won't vote to close questions where the only context is an attempt. See? Compromise!)

2

Bill Dubuque

23:27

I suppose it implies something about the success of gamification when apparently even some Emeritus Associate Professor's seem to care more about answer speed than pedagogy. Sigh.

Transcript for

$Mathematics$ CURED