This question is a debugging question, yes? Is there a consensus about whether or not these are on-topic?

the question being debated on meta is undelete again. Some context has been added. And with 4 reopen votes it will soon be opened. The present form looks ok (or lets say not that problematic, but people may have different opinion here). I wish all this editing was done before answering such questions. And more so by engaging the asker.

I also checked few other questions by the same asker and it is clearly seen that they are an active user and typically do not engage in asking PSQ. I wonder why no effort was made by answerers to get any feedback from asker. Had they asked for feedback I think things would have been different.

(1) I really hate that the context is made from whole cloth by one of the answerers, and doesn't reflect a single comment or bit of input made by the asker. I am half tempted to rollback the edits, in line with the policy on context edits and rewrites. The current version of the question is undeniably better, but it also has little to do with the original asker's input.

(2) I really hate the argument "The question is so obvious that it requires no context!" (see the comments in the edit history). Every question in mathematics comes from somewhere, and lives in a body of theory. It is the height of condescending arrogance to assert that no context is needed. It essentially says to the reader "Shut up, plebeian! The question is obvious, and if you don't see it, you are not worth the air you breath!"

Words like "obvious", "trivial", "clear", etc should be avoided in mathematical writing and reasoning. :\

While speaking of edit history you should see the last edit which say that it is meant to appease close voters. Well we are not appeased and neither need any form of appeasement.

@ParamanandSingh I was referring specifically to that comment.

It is obvious (to me) that a thing which is obvious to X may not be necessarily be obvious to Y. :D

Such relative words like "obvious" have become common in textbooks too. And I have also used in my answers. But perhaps we need to be a little more cautions and use it rarely.

@ParamanandSingh I had a student get very angry at me in an analysis class a few years ago when I marked off points on an assignment. They said something like "it is obvious that...". I dinged them and said "No, it isn't obvious; there is at least one step missing here."

The student then came to my office to argue the point, and I explained why "it is obvious" should be avoided.

He then continued to argue, so I asked him to fill in the details on the board. His explanation demonstrated that he knew what the correct result was, but had no idea how to get there. Ooops.

Very true. There are many fine points in analysis which are not really given due focus in books as they are "obvious".

I hope your student got the message.

@ParamanandSingh No idea. The student was kind of an arrogant ass---he was one of the best in the department, but the undergraduate program as a whole was not that strong. Big fish in a little pond. I hear he got into a pretty good graduate program, so hopefully he learns a little humility.

My own masters work was an incredibly humbling experience, so I know that there is hope, even for the most obnoxious student.

@XanderHenderson: sad to hear that. I think that student never got a tough competitor in school or undergrad. Usually when the arrogant are beaten in a competition they do learn some humility.

@ParamanandSingh My feeling is that everyone gets beaten down eventually. For students who really belong in graduate school, that beat down probably doesn't come until they meet their phd cohort, and realize that they are, at best, average.

(in that group)

And they will be average, because even if they are the best algebraist under the sun, someone else is going to be a better analyst, or number theorist, or category theorist, or logician, or whatever.

close PSQ

cv-pls abstract-algebra Too broad? Unclear? Or is this question a reasonable fit for the site? $\sqrt{\ \ \ } $ hypercomplex ??‭ - mick‭ 2021-03-09 03:51:09Z

@XanderHenderson: I have voted to close as "needs more focus". I wonder what is the overall point of that long question. Also the title is totally meaningless.

one more close vote needed.

this PSQ got migrated here recently, but the asker's account is gone. Some expert on elliptic curves may edit and improve the question.

Anyway we see that it received an answer. There is no hope for improvement left now.

D

D

D

This is both bad and probably likely to attract answers; math.stackexchange.com/q/4054893/29335

All three preceding D's by Peter have been D'd

@XanderHenderson What an answerer will do to get what rep they claim they earned! Wouldn't it be a heck of a lot easier to simply answer better questions?? It is illegitimate to put works into an asker's mouth to save one's answers. reuns should have from the get go, asked the better question in a separate question after deletion of the poor question, and they gone ahead to answer. Please note that the answer was also improved after the posts deletion. I'm sick of the games this rep hounds play.

@rschwieb Closed now.

@XanderHenderson Lord only knows how obnoxious you were prior to Grad School! :P

@amWhy I'll put it this way: I should have earned my bachelor's in anthropology in 2003. I didn't because I got into a pissing match with a silverback in the department. In the last interaction I had with him, he called me arrogant. I then made some comment about pots and kettles, and (essentially) threw me out of his office.

@XanderHenderson hahaha! I bet, but you were thrown out probably because what you said had a ring of truth to it, and the prof found it easiest to just throw you out!

I recognize that I have a tendency to come across as abrasive and/or arrogant. I try very hard to keep that in check, and am not always successful. But as a young 20-something, I had not yet learned that this was a skill which one should seek the develop. In retrospect, while I still believe that this professor was an a-hole, he wasn't wrong.

Anyway, @Xander, women aren't as arrogant as men are!! :P Though there are arrogant women, too, in academia, I'll give you that (but not as many as there are arrogant men!) :P

@amWhy Yeah, we enculturate women to believe that they should seek compromise, while we enculturate men to believe that they are always right. An arrogant woman is "catty" or "shrill", while an arrogant man is a "take charge leader".

Which is just stupid.

But it is how folk are raised to behave. :\

@XanderHenderson Yup, of course there are exceptions each way, but something like that.

Anywhoddles, I need to finish writing an exam.

Laters.

Later. No "s". Later!

See you!

Please delete this question, asked twice by the op, who just deleted the heavily downvoted question first asked to ask again: math.stackexchange.com/q/4055294/9003

^^^ Sorry, closure was needed first in my last request. Thanks that it's now closed. It is now open for deletion.

Please close this PSQ.

Shout out to @AlexanderGruber ! Glad to see you!

DA, DB, DC, DD, DE, DF, DG, DH

@RRL H is gone, the other A-G need only one more delete vote.

@amWhy: Thanks

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of answer (34): Closed form of recurrence relation involving sum of divisors by NEURONAL NETWORK on math.SE

This requires additional context

@an4s Indeed.

Psq math.stackexchange.com/q/4055604/29335

@rschwieb I'm all out of close votes for an hour and 20 minutes, but I did downvote the question.

why did this have two upvotes before me: math.stackexchange.com/questions/4055378/…

@Semiclassical One, before me....

Unfortunately, there seem to be users conspiring to upvote very poor posts, particularly when some of them answer them. But sometimes just for pity's sake.

the sad thing is

i like method of characteristics problems

but it's definitely a bad question

@Semiclassical Nothing wrong with that.