One is a deleted PSQ with no improvement and inactive for nearly a year, and the other is a question with decent quality. Why should the first one be undeleted at all? Doesn't this comparison further emphasize that the first should be kept deleted?
Irrelevant. Posting answers in the comments is discouraged. If you don't have the time to write an answer, then you shouldn't get your knickers in a twist when an ephemeral comment is removed.
I have noticed, of late, people providing answers/copious hints to the question in comments instead of actually adding an answer on their own.
Other people might choose not to answer, as the question has already been answered, and it might offend the person who commented with the answer. In tim...
MSE is much more permissive about answering in comments than some other sites in the network, but the consensus still seems to be that comments are ephemeral, and should not be used for providing answers.
Thus, answering in the comments is discouraged by the community consensus.
@darijgrinberg (1) I had nothing to do with the deletion of that question. Note that I am not among those that voted to delete. (2) If you cannot be civil, I have no further desire to engage. Good night.
@BillDubuque No; you're wrong. I voted to delete that post a long time ago, prior to the multiple compromises I offered, none of which you actually responded to.
3
The last of which I have yet to see your response:
@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".
@darijgrinberg I don't see a problem with this question. It is clear that the asker has made a sincere attempt. Can't speak for others but I would guess that it would never be closed or deleted. Concerning the question itself though, I don't see what matrices has got to do with it.
@user21820 But you initiiated the 3rd CRUDE deletion capaign only 22 hours ago, long after the proposed compromise. Hence my above quesry. As for your constraints re: "PSQ farmers" and "PSQ factopries" onviously I have no idea what those undefined terms mean. The site shouldn't lose good answers merely because one user has some prejudice against some user who answered it.
@BillDubuque No, I said very clearly, my last delete-vote on that post was a long time ago, prior to the multiple compromises I offered. The timestamp you see on the timeline is that of the last delete-vote, not mine.
The last time I mentioned that post in this chat-room was here, which you can see was nearly 2 weeks ago.
@BillDubuque I defined them in the message after that, which you appear to have missed.
Oh actually it's defined in the very message you cited, so I've no idea why you say it's undefined....
@user21820 I did see the few words you gave for definitions of "PSQ farmer" and "PSQ factory". They are so vague that I have no idea who they are supposed to apply to. But it is a moot point since, as I sad, I don't think it makes sense to delete an entire thread because one has some personal prejudice against one user who answered it.
@BillDubuque It's not because you don't understand what I said (it is clear to everyone else what PSQ means), but because you don't agree with it. It's fine to disagree with my viewpoint on PSQs, but it's wrong for you to misrepresent it as so-called "personal prejudice". I even upvote good questions by PSQ factories and good answers to good questions by PSQ farmers, so there's nothing personal there.
@user21820 Your delete vote had to occur after the last undeletion, whioh was fairly recently (Mar 25). You are the only user who voted to delete 3 times, and always the first to vote to delete. So it seems like you may be actively tracking the undeletions and attempting to revert them. Which is exactly opposite of the compromise I proposed (at least 3 times now, the first being long ago). But maybe you only recently decided to give it a try.
@BillDubuque You can see right up there the message you quoted was on Mar 27. I never go back on my word intentionally. But until now you still have yet to agree to the compromise I offered.
And no, I voted on that because it was mentioned in this chat-room by someone else on Mar 25.
@user21820 I don't know why you think you can read my mind, but when I said that I have no idea who those terms apply to I do mean it. I honestly do not know even a single user who I would guess you are referring to. Keep in mind that I only browse questions in my tags - which does not include calculus / real-analysis.
@quid @AloizioMacedo: Perhaps could you please lock that question in the closed state so that it is neither gone nor paraded as a good question, and so that we can stop having to spend time talking about it?
@user21820 Thanks, for the link. Sadly, it has now acquired yet another delete vote, so apparently not everyone is interested in compromising (though possibly it could have originated outside CRUDE)
@BillDubuque That's why I asked in my last chat message if a mod can lock in the closed state, because although I prefer it deleted, I am simply not interested in wasting more time on it.
@user21820 To be clear, the "personal prejudice" only refers to the point I was discussing, viz, your claim that you don't want to compromise on a Q&A if it includes a Q/A by a "rep farmer / factory". My point is that it is not fair to others who may have posted good answers in that thread (which may be the reason that others are voting to undelete). Why should those good answers have to suffer because you have some personal prejudice against another answerer?
@BillDubuque Let me repeat myself, there is nothing personal there. You can say just "prejudice", but the SE system was supposed to be prejudiced against bad questions. I've already pointed you to Meta discussion that you chose to consider insufficient, and I don't wish to argue.
@user21820 That's your opinion. In my opinion the system was design to generate good answers. Questions have infinitesimal import other than to spark good answers.
@user21820 Compromise involves sincerely attempting to understand the viewpoints of others (hence my query above about what rep farmers and factories means to you, since I don't know any in my tags)
@BillDubuque I already anticipated that, hence my provided definitions. I am not obliged to spend all my time explaining the fine details to every user who asks. We're not supposed to directly name users, that's why I don't provide examples. You can just go by definition, since you already know what a PSQ is. If a PSQ poster is directed to the how-to-ask page by a comment or close-banner, but after that continues to post PSQs, that counts as a PSQ factory. It's true most PSQs are in calculus.
@user21820 Ok, let's not waste any fiurther efforts on definitions. You said you'd give it a try so let's do it. Honestly I think it will involve only a very small compromise on your end since these reversals are rare. OTOh, if the opposite end of the spectrum has to organize as you did here, then there is no stopping rep hounds from taking advantage of that organization, and all hell will break loose - just as it did in the past. So let's hope a compromise works.
@user21820 If you notice folks on the other end that appear to be abusing the compromise then let me know and I will volunteer to moderate it inasmuch as possible.
@darijgrinberg that's an understatement. Actually it really should not be done (answer in comment). That's especially true for rather routine things. This site is not super strict about it, but I still do not want the site to be a complete mess regarding this. We do get flags that ask us to delete answers in comments. On some other sites that's standard practice.
@BillDubuque a compromise would certainly by desirable, but I don't know when all hell broke lose. The "other side" never really managed to organize for various reasons including most of them (you personally are in a way an outlier) mostly not being interested in anything but their own content. Egoism and egocentrism has its drawbacks.
@quid Your speculations about why folks on the opposite end of the spectrum never organized are way off the mark. In fact if one is going to bring "ego" into it then one could argue that those whose ego has been inflated by gamification would be more inclined to organize. There are diverse factors at play here, including that many experienced teachers don't have the patience to play these puerile games, and don't want their contributions "moderated" by users who have barely mastered calculus
In the past we once had leading experts in many fields who (regularly) contributed here and the site had such breadth and depth that everyone could learn something. That is no longer true, and the reason that we lost so much expertise was in most cases for the failure to reach good compromises (not only on this topic).
Many left for the failure to reach good compromises (not only on this topic). With some introspection and a little effort we can avoid repeating the past mistakes.
@BillDubuque it's certainly good to strive for good compromises.
That said, there is no reason to exaggerate. And, for balance, it might also be relevant to recall that some don't wish(ed) to be associated to the site for its lax approach towards (potential) HW questions. (I don't even share those concerns in that form but it's fact that they exist too.)
@quid fyi: part of my research in designing a new platform was to try to speak to experts who left in order to determine what would be needed to bring them back to a new platform (as well as speaking to some who never joined but who I know value teaching). So I may have a bit more intuition on these matters than normal. I also did similarly for sci.math when I was working on filtering tools for that (in Emacs gnus).
I've been thinking deeply about these matters now for almost 3 decades, since I'd like to get it right in a platform designed for math. Alas, SE is very far from that.
@quid Alas, not much more I can reveal since the conversations were agreed to be kept private (it would very difficult to get folks to speak candidly if they knew the conversation might be made public).
@BillDubuque that's too bad. I am sure you understand how this makes this all much less useful.
I didn't even ask for the content , just who. Not even specifically to who you talked. Just who the "many" experts are that supposedly left. I mean I could name a handful. But "many"?
It may be that we have different threshold for what's an expert.
@quid Many of the folks who never joined SE are widely recognized experts in their fields (some of whom I have discussed related matters with over many decades). One primary design goal is to build a system that would be attractive to retired professors (which is rarely true for the SE platform). There is a wealth of knowledge that could be tapped if once succeeds in such an endeavor.
@BillDubuque there are certainly many widely recognized experts in their field that never joined math.se. The point was about you claiming that many left the site (for lack of compromises).
