@BillDubuque The only thing I find objectiinable is the scope, which seems rather larger than you’re describing, and I wanted to see if anyone else felt the same.

I think part of the reason the question stayed largely the same for 8+ years is that most people did not find it very misleading.

@rschwieb Au contraire, the reason is that "most people" aren't familiar with the esoteric topic of divisibility theore in non-domains

theore -> theory

Which is why I dug up that & other) papers a couple decades ago and frequently mentioned it on sci.math & here to help correct common misconceptons.

One of the other papers I often cite is a 1996 survey, which describes the impact that bifurcation in the definitions of associate and irreducible has on unique factorization in rings with zero-divisors.

Again, these results are very little-known - even to ring theorists.

@rschwieb My preference is to leave confused or incorrect terminology in the question, as such confusion gives context about where the answer is confuse and about what requires clarification. A good answer to such a question begins by pointing out the errors in terminology.

Consider this contest question for reopening/undeletion. I edited the title and move the link to the contest page from the comments to the question body. I don't know whether that is sufficient context. I am known to be partial to contest questions. The reason is that, by design, many goodish students have trouble getting anything done in a contest question.

This specimen is relatively trivial as a contest question, so I understand, if any of you feels that more is required. Nevertheless, antkam's answer is, IMHO, nice, and may also pull in the direction of keeping this undeleted (even as closed).

Then again, I was apparently nerd sniped to answer this question of a doubtful quality back in '14. When should we get rid of old, largely unmotivated questions like that?

For closure: c1, c2, c3, c4

For deletion: d1, d2, d3, d4

c5

Does this meta edit conflict with the OP's intent (in this case it's even worse as the OP is currently suspended)?

@JyrkiLahtonen I usually don't like contest problems all that much, but you have convinced me that I maybe ought to reconsider that point of view. I made some small edits (mostly, I tried to improve the title), and nominated the question for reopening.

@YuiToCheng Which edit? You have linked to the entire edit history. I would say that revision 7 was inappropriate.

cv-pls complex-analysis Missing context or other details Calculate ∫π2+iπ2cos2zdz∫π2π2+icos⁡2zdz\int_{\pi\over 2}^{{\pi\over2}+i} \cos2 z dz‭ - J. DoeJ. Doe‭ 2019-04-19 12:29:39Z

@GNUSupporter8964民主女神地下教會 Note that it's self-answered; in fact it's a proof-verification question.

Now the answer has been moved into the question (I've also added the proof-verification tag).

@XanderHenderson Yeah, I think edit 7 has done a disservice.

@YuiToCheng That puzzling edit (rev 7) to MH's meta question has now been rolled back (the author cliams it was done by mistake).

@XanderHenderson I agree. I favor more conservative editing. Two stars on the comment besides my own as well.

@rschwieb I prefer correctness vs. hare-brained "editing polciies"

If someone wants to make a strong argument for the latter go right ahead - I'll be happy to gloriously refute it.

@BillDubuque Your answer already deals with the ambiguity well, or if it is insufficient, could be made to leverage the teachability of the situation. It’s hardly necessary to recast the original question to obliterate the teaching moment. The issue is hardly about correctness, it’s about appropriate use of editing whether it is about scope or radically altering the question, If everyone took the same liberties, then we would have endless edit warring and arguments going on.

:49985684. It seems you are judging the the matter based on syntax (number of characters edited) vs. semantics. The semantics of the matter is that the question is precisely the same - only the names have been corrected. The edit does not affect the question (or answers) in any way - it still denotes precisely the same question.

To be precise, only only the denotation of one term (associate) has been corrected. The other term "unit multiples" was added). That's the gist of the edit. I've made many analogous edits in the past and the usual response from the OP is something like: thanks very much, I was not aware of the more general terminology. I don't recall any OP ever rejecting such an edit.

@BillDubuque au contraire, it is precisely the semantics that are the problem. Edits substantially changing terminology undercut other answers written based on the original question . Or do you have designs to “correct” those as well?

@rschwieb The semantics of the question is unchanged - which was precisely my claim - and the only thing that matters here. As I said, the edit has zero impact on the answers. It seems you are not even reading what I wrote.

"only only" -> "only" above

@BillDubuque It seems to me that your edit does have a small impact on the accepted answer : the original question used "associates" for what you have renamed "unit multiples", and the first sentence of the third paragraph in Robin Chapman's answer also adopts this terminology. With your edit, the part "$Ra=Rb$ imply $a$ and $b$ associates" doesn't make much sense since that is now the definition of "associates".

@ArnaudD. That is of course easy to fix (and it conflicts with the notation in the paper and in wide use in ring theory)

Now fixed, thanks for catching that.

@BillDubuque Where has anyone in this discussion appealed to any kind of adherence to an arbitrary policy? Your statement that you prefer "correctness" over "hare-brained 'editing polciies'" is both a strawman (as noone has yet suggested that there is any specific policy which is being enforced) and an offensive ad hominem (as you are implicitly accusing those that disagree with you as being "hare-brained").

Please note that my argument against editing was that the confusion of the original author is due, in part, to not having the correct definitions.

A good answer to such a question helps the asker (and anyone else with a similar confusion) by first noting the error in terminology. Editing the question to correct the error does nothing to alleviate the confusion, and does nothing to help others who have a similar confusion in the future.

As an example that is closer to my expertise, I have seen several questions assert that a fractal is defined by the property that it has non-integer dimension (for whatever notion of dimension is preferred), then proceed to ask a question related to fractal geometry. In reality, no author uses this definition---there are examples of curves with integer dimension which are, nevertheless, fractal.

Instead, the "correct" definition is that a fractal is a set with some dimensional inequality (usually, Hausdorff dimension strictly greater than topological dimension). The correct response to such a question, in my opinion, is to address the confusion in an answer (or comment---perhaps the author will seek to modify the question on their own). I believe that it is inappropriate to edit a question to change this.

But this question has nothing to do with terminology. Rather it only concerns the equivalence of two properties. That the OP didn't know the correct name for one of these properties in more general rings has no impact on the essence of the question.

@BillDubuque In my example, the confusion over the definition of the word "fractal" also has nothing to do with the terminology. It just happens to include an incorrect use of a term. Changing the question would have little impact on the on the fundamental essence of the question, but would destroy a "teachable moment."

@XanderHenderson Please stay focused on this question. If you wish to ask a different question about terminology then go right ahead.

@BillDubuque I am focused on this question, where I think that the misuse of a term is part of the question. I am sorry that the use of hypotheticals and analogies is distracting you from the point that I was making.

@XanderHenderson Absolutely not.

Okay. You disagree. Fine. Since you aren't bothering to either refute my point or make an affirmative case for your point of view, and as things seem to be moving towards a childish game of "Uh huh!" "Nuh uh!" "Uh huh!", I'm going to call it a day. Have a good one.

I alrteady refuted your point - the question is not concerned about terminology. Period.

It is amazing how hostile some members of this room are to those who don't share its general political views

@BillDubuque I never claimed that the question was about terminology. I said that the misuse of terminology represents a part of the asker's confusion, and represents a teachable moment.

@XanderHenderson Please do explain why you believe that "the misuse of terminology represents a part of the asker's confusion". That's quite an impressive crystal ball you have there.... You object to a minor edit but have no qualms reading the OP's mind. The mind boggles...

@BillDubuque I find it fascinating that you complain about the hostility of this room (despite the fact that it is you who tosses around terms like "hare-brained"), then have the audacity to post a comment then intentionally edit it in order to append the provocative and semantically useless tag "The mind boggles..."

The asker misused a term. The very fact that they were unaware of their misuse is evidence of confusion. This requires no mind reading.

In any event, I'm done getting drawn in by your provocations. Have a nice day.

Sorry, if you are going to attempt to read the OP's mind to support illogical arguments, then my mind does indeed boggle. I expect much better on a mathematical site.

For closure: C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8

For closure: C9, C10, C11, C12

@ArnaudD. Thx for update. Close vote retracted. I look at the context of the question alone, regardless of its answers.

@BillDubuque The word term connotes semantics, and while I haven't said you changed the semantics, the comment I had about it impacting existing answers still holds. Let me remind you (again) that the point is not that there is something intrinsically wrong with the change, just the appropriateness of the change itself.

@BillDubuque One more thing: the reason I brought it up here, instead of meta, where such stuff usually goes, is because I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt to explain your motivations first, and to get other opinions at the same time. On meta it would no doubt be a duplicate. I didn’t even take any action to modify the edits.

I thought perhaps in the course of the conversation you might consider compromising, but I see contrary to your previous lip service to compromise, you are not interested in it, nor acknowledging any valid argument as to why such edits are bad practice.

Rather I have met name-calling ([your] “hare-brained policy”) and an apparent unwillingness to put aside personal history (“you and I rarely agree on anything so this comes as no surprise”) and so on. I am not saying that I am particularly bothered by it, but I thought making it explicit the apparent negative feedback loop that is going on here. Personally I’m interested in snapping that trend, so that is why I’m keeping discussion as objective as possible.

At any rate, I’ve learned a lot from the discussion and I think I see an obvious compromise, so it wasn't a waste of time. Thing is it’ll have to wait until I have time to see what all transpired at the question and its answers.

@rschwieb I don't see any need for a "compromise" here. Nor am I interested in opening historical cans of worms. But I am quite shocked that you would pick a fight over such a trivial matter.

Duplicate of this closed question

Although what the question is asking is slightly different, the answer given by MR in the closed post already answers the OP's question