@BillDubuque That is fair. But just contact me. If I'm online, I'm reading the transcripts of the relevant chats. (Yes, that is not something that is reasonable to be assumed beforehand, so I understand your reasoning. But please don't do it again, that is not the purpose of comments.)
@BillDubuque To the contrary, I could imagine many other reasons why a newer question might be a better dupe target than an older one, for example if the new question were stated better. In this case no such difference between the questions jumped out at me, in which case timestamp/popularity seems like a reasonable tiebreaker (especially since older/more popular questions probably rank higher in search engines). Was there some reason you had in mind?
@GregoryJ.Puleo Well I was going to explain it, but given that a moderator thinks he knows better than the top user in that tag I'm not going to waste my time
Regarding the rest: merges are one of the main ways that we have to preserve good answers on the site which end up being in duplicate, bad or questions which will just vanish for some other reason. // Why did you think it was a major abuse of moderator power? // I don't understand... you think I should be a prolific answerer of the elementary number theory tag in order to handle them?
@AloizioMacedo Yes, I think you shouldn't have that power without having demonstrated expertise in the tag. This is one of the basic flaws of the SE platform. Why did you think there was need to use moderator power here before I even had a chance to discuss it here? Whats was the BIG RUSH?
FWIW, I agree with Bill. He went through the normal process to close a post. There was nothing malicious or hateful about closing. He did it in good faith. So why shouldn’t the post have gone through the normal reopen process? I don’t know if “abuse” is the word I’d use, but it does seem strange.
@user64742 It is not a matter of maliciousness or hatefulness. It was just a bad call, which I undid. Moderators are not restricted only to act upon cases of malice or hatefulness.
@BillDubuque @AloizioMacedo honestly with as much debate going on here over that one post and other subjects one of you two should make a meta post. Neither of you should have the final say on this. The fact that you both disagree indicates to me at least that we need a stronger consensus.
If every two people disagreeing would create a meta post we would soon have a flood... but if any of you think it deserves one, that is again a right you have.
@AloizioMacedo that’s where I and probably Bill disagree. A moderator should only be using moderation powers when actual moderation is needed (I.e. a rule breakage). Otherwise you should be going through the same processes as other users. Moderators and stack exchange and others bypassing systems is the #1 that drives people at my work nuts and it is arguably a strong reason why so many users resigned over that Monica incident last year.
@user64742 Not necessary, I won't be wasting any further time trying to organize the site. AM clearly thinks he knows better, so I'll let him make all the "good calls". Best of luck with that folks.
Well using moderation to facilitate your opinion could be argued as that. However I didn’t know that Bill could close in one vote. I thought only moderators could do that, hence my complaint.
hence Bills statement of power abuse. Now I understand. Carry on.
@BillDubuque out of curiosity I’m going to ask. Did you get any input before closing as duplicate? Perhaps that’s the real problem here. People aren’t communicating and it’s creating conflict.
@user64742 I already explained, since AM thinks he knows better, he can do all the painstaking organization in the future. I'll go back to the enjoyable part like answering questions, dupe or not. He can then male all the "good calls" on duplication
@BillDubuque Do you mean in an ethereal sense or in a practical sense? In an ethereal sense, you may have any interpretation of merit you wish, and we'd not gain much in discussing that. In a practical one, we both have earned that right in different ways and in different degrees.
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Well, there could be a point to be argued where deficit in actual knowledge of a topic (instead of lacking having "earned" the right by answering countless questions) would hinder someone's ability to decide about matters regarding it... but that would be a strange case to be made for elementary number theory.
@AloizioMacedo Sorry, nothing you say is going to convince me that you have earned the right to moderate a tag where you have zero demonstrated expertise - esp. going as far at to overrule the top user in that tag without any prior discussion, and refusing to offer any reasonable explanation ("it was clear to me" does not count).
Further, given the many disagreements we've had in the past on meta matters, the honorable thing to do would be to recuse yourself in such a matter.
@BillDubuque Having many disagreements is not enough for that to be the honorable course of action. I'm not even aware of the many disagreements you mentioned, to be honest. IIRC, we may have interacted less than five times, and only in chat. I'd bet heavily in me being the mod which you have had the least disagreements... if that is the case, should every one of them recuse themselves in such matters?
@AloizioMacedo Well we'll have to disagree on that too - just like all the other things. Maybe you should try harder to jog your memory. In any case, I think your meta views are probably the furthest from mine of anyone on the current mod team. In any case, best of luck moderating elementary-number-theory
@GregoryJ.Puleo If you experience anything similar to this in the future, feel free to flag for moderator attention. To do that, click "flag", and then select "In need of moderator intervention." Thanks for posting here.
@BillDubuque You've offered not rationale nor defense for the irrational choice you made. If you want to present a sound argument to defend your decision, do so, but without demeaning other users and site mods.
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in answer, pattern-matching website in answer, potentially bad ip for hostname in answer, potentially problematic ns configuration in answer (174): sample space of type of blood by dawnimmerman on math.SE
Here is an abuse of a gold badge reopen by rschwieb, where he gold-badge reopened a question he answered that was already answered by the linked dupe. The question should be reclosed.
@BillDubuque it's better not to personalize this. I propose to focus on whether the question is a duplicate or not. (I did not look into it, and thus do not yet have an opinion.)
@rschwieb Please see above. Recently you opined that I should recuse from discussing a VLQ answer, only because I (later) answered too (feeling sorry (and embarrassed for the site) that the OP got such a poor answer).
