A message to everybody closing questions : please see if a relevant comment explaining a downvote/close vote is present prior to closure, else please add it. This is in connection to a recent question of @JoséCarlosSantos, whose suggestion I appreciate and should be taken to practice quickly.
@TeresaLisbon Just mentioning that there is a list of comment templates on meta, which I find very convenient. I regularly use some of them, in particular those about “pure homework question”, “insufficient quality”, and “How to write math”.
@MartinR Hi Martin, thanks for the list, I will make use of it in the future. I wish to be user-specific in my comments, so I will modify the template as per the user involved.
@Peter I have put a delete vote on the second question, thanks. With respect to the first question, it would have been nicer if someone in the comments had prompted the OP to expand on his substitution, because just saying "I tried this, it didn't work" without at least some details, I think that's not enough effort. Besides, the user is the one saying the substitution does not work : if he/she shows the direction of work, it is possible someone else could have made it work.
Certainly the addition of "I tried this , it did not work" is better than nothing. But is it good enough? Not according to the five people who have closed it, for sure.
@TeresaLisbon I admit that a workout of the trial would have been nice. But closing such a question considering that an effort has been shown is enough. The questions that should be deleted are those showing no effort/context whatsoever.
We need one more downvote for the last question you mentioned.
I am in favor of closing questions quickly, but there is at least a theoretical chance that questions are improved so that they can be reopened. Therefore I would not vote to delete them instantly. But there are of course exceptions and other opinions (and I am myself probably not always consistent in that aspect).
@MartinR I agree with you completely. I thought that no cleaning bot existed, therefore we must strive to delete quickly as well, but now I see we must exercise some restraint. As Peter explained as well, if questions are improved we can reopen them.
@TeresaLisbon The exception is if the question has (positively scored) answers or has been closed as a duplicate, because those are not deleted automatically, so we might want to cast delete votes (after some time, if a poor question is not improved). – That is also a reason to favor “off-topic” over “duplicate” votes for poor questions, that has been discussed here: math.meta.stackexchange.com/q/22830/42969.
Automatic deletion is not a good idea, unless the negative score is drastical (lets say, $-10$ or less). I hope that not too many posts vanish because of bots.
@amWhy Welcome! I was not aware of the bot, so Martin had to inform me. I now realize that we only need to bring up questions here that aren't picked up by the bot already. This question qualifies, since it has a highly rated answer.
@TeresaLisbon If you enjoy word searches, or just wanna get away from numbers for a few minutes, I've posted another word challenge here: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/112937/…
@amWhy Thank you for the link! I was going through the review queue, I will take a look.
Actually , the OP here has felt his/her question has been unfairly downvoted and/or voted for closure. This user has a better than average track record with questions asked, from what I see on the front page. Maybe people feel the effort is not enough? Could this person be a victim of people downvoting "elementary posts"?
@TeresaLisbon No rush! come back anytime. I couldn't ping you from here.
@TeresaLisbon Sometimes users' voting behavior has no rational explanation. But yes, some users are far more critical and expectant on users asking more elementary, and tend to allow PSQ from users asking advanced level questions.
I feel very divided over this question. It feels like the most elementary clarification ever. What can even qualify as context here? It's just a clarification.
@TeresaLisbon Yes you make a good point; the user what numbers can the lower bound of a sum be. I retracted my earlier close vote, because there is not context other than what the OP wrote.
@TeresaLisbon I'm holding off on closing. I think anyone wanting to clarify that there no law in mathematics stating that all sums must begin with $n=1$. Since they are asking specifically about sums starting with $n=o$ they need to know they will encounter many sums of each n=0 and n=1
@amWhy Exactly. I think there should be an answer to this effect on the question. I won't be attempting this, since I'm speaking to another user right now, I hope someone else will do the honours.
Looks like questions are getting closed/deleted even before I can find their links here. This is what happens when one does not have a regular attendance in this room.
@ParamanandSingh Sometimes, yes, for a better clean up we would however need more users on this chatroom with enough reputation. Any ideas how we can attract them ?
Also, ideas how to attract users for number theoretical projects of all sorts that could meet in a special chat room are welcome. Martin Hopf and I have some that are very interesting.
@amWhy That one's a real awkward one. I have voted to close both Q and A, but this one is a real awkward one, so I would not delete the question. The answer should go.
@Peter Is it worth talking to high-rep users 1-1? I feel I can do that, if you give me a hint on who to target.
I flagged two high-rep users today morning, for repeatedly answering low-quality questions, so there's plenty who don't know the issues. Reputation is such a false number, that way.
@TeresaLisbon: hello! I think most of the high rep users know the issues. Some of them knowingly answer PSQs on routine basis. And they don't agree to the philosophy of CURED.
@ParamanandSingh Ok, I will put it this way. If you people give me users who you feel are worthy of interaction, and can be convinced to do some moderation work, we can do it. I feel the elimination of PSQs is a common ground, we can start from there. There are high-rep users answering PSQs left-right-center, I just think someone needs to give them a little reminder of the damage they are doing.
@TeresaLisbon At least five of the top ten in reputation are some of the greatest adherents to answer not matter what. Others with lower rep, see from most of the top twenty users, how they succeeded (to gain so much rep), and try to emulate, thinking it must be okay.
@TeresaLisbon: we can try, but honestly my own circle of people with whom I have interacted here is small. And out that most are already here and 3 or 4 won't join this activity. I have tried.
To be fair, there are some concepts that could be better concerning reputation. Just an example : That a users can lose points if other users leave this site, is not a good idea.
@TeresaLisbon This has been an ongoing debate on math.se, particularly active since 2015. There are some of us who downvote answerers to blatant PSQ's. People earning 200+ rep every day, aint gonna change easily, but downvoting their posts, and deleting the questions within 3 months of the questions post, wipes out everyone's gained rep.
@amWhy I can see why it is such an issue, certainly. I will try to speak to newer users I can catch : who break the rep barrier just a little, but retain sensibility. I think I have already spoken to two such users, and they are helping the site in their own way.
@Peter If an answer scores 3 net upvotes, after three months, if the asker leaves, or the post is deleted, they keep the rep they earned, except for the 15 "accepted" points.
@TeresaLisbon What's nice is that any question deleted in the first 3months of its posting wipes away the rep of the answers, even an answer who gained 10 upvotes woosh away!
@amWhy: I want to share something here about that debate. One of the past moderators (no need to name here as many know about this) resigned from his mod activity precisely because of rep hunting of a specific user. I had interacted with this rep hunter in past many times via comments and seemed to be a nice fellow. But somehow the addiction of rep hunt won and we lost a great moderator.
Another former mod resigned because he continued his prolific PSQ answering, even as a mod, and I among others, called him on it. So he chose earning rep over moderating, and resigned.
@amWhy I think the rep automation is a good thing, especially after the story regarding the moderator, who I actually don't know about, maybe it happened when I was not active on meta. This is quite unacceptable, really. How can users be like this? I did speak about this in an answer of mine recently, because I did go over such feelings, but does not reading about issues on meta change somebody's mind even the tiniest bit?
@TeresaLisbon I think it can work with new users who rapidly earn rep; There were five such users I found a chance to converse, sometimes in comments below their answers. I remember four of them made substantial changes in what they answered, particpated in reviews, etc. And it never helps to be accusatory when speaking with them, but just speak matter of factly that answering PSQs and homework question for a user actually harms them, in the short term and certainly in the long term.
PSQ is anyway only the "tip of the iceberg". Looking at the highest rating posts speaks volumes about what is upvoted to heaven here. Many of them are opinion-based , philosophical and just off-topic, and almost always rewarded with multiple answers (sometimes more than $10$) some of which are upvoted to heaven as well. Suggestions how to handle this ?
Groovy. I've reopened it. If there is a better dupe target, please let me know. However, I don't trust myself to read mathematics right now. My thinking feels very muzzy.
I did managed to get through three lectures today, however, and completely lost my train of thought only once. :D
I want an automatic message (which will be narrated by a paperclip): Hey! It looks like you are about to ask a question about your proof of [the Riemann hypothesis | the Collatz Conjecture | P=NP ]. I haven't read your argument in detail, but I guarantee that it is wrong. Perhaps consider posting it to vixra?
