CURED - 2021-04-22

Oliver Diaz

12:33 AM

The following question PSQ to be closed for lack of focus. The OP is asking 8 questions in one textbook problem.

Xander Henderson

@OliverDiaz Ugh... it is a (PSQ)^8.

Oliver Diaz

12:57 AM

@XanderHenderson: no kidding. I have seen several questions by the same person. All All are from the same textbook (good problems tough). It is my impression this person is not putting enough time to solve the problem on his own and instead he is posting them one after the other.

Xander Henderson

@OliverDiaz Indeed. Having read through some of the posted questions, I think that I might need to get a copy of that text (in case I ever get to teach measure theory... 'cause, y'know, that's gonna happen at a community college). Some of those problems are rather nice. The Sierpinski example, for instance, is new to me.

user2661923

I request that the following question be undeleted
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3876263/find-the-number-of-triples-k-1-k-2-k-3-of-integers-under-non-equal-constra

::

I agree that the OP showed no work. Worse, the OP himself (accurately) suggested that the
problem could be attacked by combining Stars and Bars and Inclusion-Exclusion. Despite
that, I think that the question should be undeleted for two reasons:

::

[1] The Stars and Bars + Inclusion-Exclusion approach is somewhat convoluted. I think
that the standard of requiring the OP to show work should, to some degree, be affected
by how difficult the problem is to understand/attack. The specific answer that I gave,
which implements the idea suggested by the OP, is no walk in the park.

::

[2] There are generally two existing approaches to such a problem:
(Stars and Bars + Inclusion-Exclusion) and (generating functions). The answer
that I gave seems reasonably well written. Further, I think that Yip Jung Hon's
generating functions answer is extremely well written. So you have a comprehensive
well written documentation of the two plausible approaches. I think that undeleting
this question will be very handy: MathSE reviewers can then reference this
question as simultaneously showing both approaches to the problem, for all

user2661923

1:32 AM

::

Xander Henderson

Guesses on when the pity upvotes start appearing?

@user2661923 If you really believe that the answers are worth keeping, I would suggest that you post a new question which covers the same material, but which adheres to site guidelines.

Paramanand Singh

@user2661923: there are many such questions on mathse, but with context. See in particular this one

user2661923

Yes, that alternative just occurred to me. Creating a new question is a good idea.

Xander Henderson

Note that there is a procedure for rewriting questions: math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/32402/… .

Also, when you make requests in this room, please indicate when and if you have a vested interest in the outcome. In this case, you posted an answer to the question which you are asking us to undelete. Please disclose this fact in the future.

@user2661923 Creating a new question is a good idea if that question adheres to site guidelines (in this case, I would be particularly concerned about a new question being a duplicate---I suspect that your answer could be modified to answer one of the dozens of pre-existing questions which cover similar ground.

Alternatively, if your goal is to create an abstract duplicate target for all such questions, please let me or another moderator know when you have posted the Q&A pair. It is possible that we can help with the resulting dupe-closures which will redirect readers to your Q&A.

user2661923

First of all, I am persuaded that there is no reason to undelete the original question. Second of all, I am also persuaded that it is unnecessary to create a new question, because of already existing questions, such as the one referred to by
Paramanand Singh. So, you guys have changed my mind. Thanks for the responses.

Xander Henderson

1:42 AM

thumbs up emoji

Paramanand Singh

2:06 AM

@user2661923: if your answer uses a new Idea (or perhaps is better than existing answers) you should write that out for the question I linked. It is always nice to have many different approaches to a problem.

Paramanand Singh

2:33 AM

I can see 386 questions in close queue. In a month this is the first time it went below 400. Let's bring it down further.

user2661923

2:52 AM

@ParamanandSingh Actually, one I reviewed the question that you cited, I found that Joffan's answer does a good job of duplicating my analysis, while your answer does a good job of exploring generating functions. So, this means that I don't really have anything to offer.

@ParamanandSingh The one suggestion that I have is for you to consider editing your answer to lift some of the explanations + trailing comments from the answer of Yip Jun Hong, in the original question that I cited. Perhaps that would make it easier for a new user to start attacking such problems with generating functions, rather than Stars and Bars + Inclusion-Exclusion.

@ParamanandSingh I am referring to your answer in the question that you cited.

Xander Henderson

3:18 AM

Way too broad, and both the asker and answerer are choosing to be argumentative, rather than actually improve the question.

Teresa Lisbon

4:40 AM

@XanderHenderson I believe the OP has some points, I've answered such questions before , for example having five to six doubt steps in a long proof. Instead I'm going to point out something else : the answerer is aware that the OP is "preparing for an exam" and has the OP's email ID. Next, out of the OP's past nine questions, the answerer has answered two of them and deleted the attempt on the third one.

I would ask for a compromise, but then again, here's a PSQ from the asker.

(Make that six questions in the last 16 that were answered by the same person. I think the defending here from the answerer could have more reasons than just a mere grievance with the site rules)

In fact, I'd even say that it's ok to follow a user for some time if you wish to monitor their progress on the site, in terms of the quality of their contributions. I do this often with some posters, but rarely if ever answer their questions. What I've seen in this 10 minutes goes a notch beyond that, since no communication from OP and answerer comes through apart from Q and A.

postmortes

5:20 AM

@XanderHenderson I can recommend Bruckner's Real Analysis in general; it covers more than measure theory and is very well written. It can be quite challenging in places, too :)

Paramanand Singh

5:33 AM

@user2661923: Ok will update my answer with some more details.

SmokeDetector

6:37 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of body (42): If the improper integral is divergent, what is it equal to? by MrCalculusQuestions on math.SE

Teresa Lisbon

6:56 AM

@XanderHenderson There was a rude comment which got removed, but I still want to help the OP argue through this. I think this is not too broad because the questions are quite linked. Asking them as separate questions would reduce searchability. Everything else I said still stands, though.

Peter

7:11 AM

C/D

Peter

7:26 AM

D

Peter

7:53 AM

rude post , weirdly got a positive score.

Teresa Lisbon

8:22 AM

@Peter By mistake I had the wrong close reason, but you can say that the poster has been rude. Side note, I believe the user is back from a recent suspension.

Peter

I flagged the post as being rude or abusive. Let's see what happens. I agree that this way of viewing Fermat's last theorem gives no additional insight and has virtually no merit , hence this post indirectly insults me (and surely the vast majority of the mathematicians) as well.

Euler 2

8:39 AM

C/D

KReiser

9:20 AM

completely irrelevant to the question

user1729

9:42 AM

@KReiser It would be helpful if you commented on the answer to explain its irrelevance.

KReiser

@user1729 done

Euler 2

10:15 AM

C/D

C

Xander Henderson

12:21 PM

@TeresaLisbon Note that I said in one of my comments that the question was both (a) too broad and (b) without context. Part of the problem with posting a multi-part question is that it gives no indication about where the asker is confused. Questions on Math SE should be narrow and focused, and should provide context about the problem. In this case, the asker put forward a long problem statement, and gave almost no context.

What is the actual question there, if not "Do my homework for me"?

Teresa Lisbon

1:03 PM

@XanderHenderson But there were attempts, right? For parts $c$ and $e$, respectively? The user did not want to split the question because all the parts were related, and they tried attempting every part they could. What more can you ask for? Perhaps you can ask for the questioner to be more specific, but then again it's also possible that the questions have a logical order, say one part implies the other. The actual question is very much to solve the questions , I agree there.

But yes, the questioner was rude, I got them to remove a comment which they had made comparing you (@XanderHenderson) to somebody. They did that. Then I wrote two further comments explaining what they could have done better.

Xander Henderson

1:43 PM

@TeresaLisbon I would not really characterize those as attempts of (c) or (e). They are musings on first steps. In any event, I have a pretty consistent stance regarding the value of "attempts", and this is largely irrelevant, as the fundamental problems with the post remain: it is a homework dump, it is unfocused, and there is very little context.

Not to mention the fact that the key information is contained in an image.

Xander Henderson

2:23 PM

cv-pls abstract-algebra PSQ A subgroup generated by a 4-cycles and 5-cycles in S5S_5‭ - Andy‭ 2021-04-20 08:30:27Z

^^ The above question has some history---it was deleted by the asker as soon as an answer was provided (which is not okay), and subsequently undeleted by another moderator. I don't want to act unilaterally, and would prefer that the community handle the question (assuming that it needs further handling).

soupless

2:51 PM

Hello! Can I ask why solution-verification is the tag when I typed proof-verification? I know that they are synonyms, but I noticed some questions with the latter tag.

Xander Henderson

The later tag is a synonym of the former, which means that it is automatically translated when applied to new posts. Essentially, there is no such thing as a proof-verification tag. @soupless

However, the tag used to exist, and old instances are not necessarily translated.

soupless

Oh. I was supposed to ask about that. Thank you.

José Carlos Santos

3:42 PM

close Is it just me, or is this question a PSQ (with three upvotes)?

Teresa Lisbon

3:54 PM

@XanderHenderson Point taken. I still think that wasn't obvious, at least as obvious as a usual PSQ is.

amWhy

4:07 PM

@JoséCarlosSantos It's not just you. It is a PSQ and very unclear. I dv'd and had previously voted to close the question.

Teresa Lisbon

Anyway, training by watching the Tamil version of Sherlock Holmes. Needless to say, it's been thrilling so far. Learning for MSE, outside MSE!

vitamin d

4:30 PM

@JoséCarlosSantos How can I link tags like you did?

soupless

@vitamind [tag:calculus] calculus

amWhy

4:45 PM

@Peter Open for deletion: math.stackexchange.com/questions/4110997/…

Teresa Lisbon

@amWhy Gone!

amWhy

@TeresaLisbon Yay!!!

soupless

@TeresaLisbon This seems like a PSQ.

Martin Sleziak

5:11 PM

@soupless Mathematics Meta: Why does the tag “(solution-verification)” show as “(proof-verification)”?

Teresa Lisbon

5:22 PM

@soupless It is, isn't it? For now, not downvoted, just voted to close. Downvote will come if needed for deletion.

soupless

5:45 PM

This question is confusing. Could belong in soft-question but not sure.This one, please.

soupless

6:06 PM

Last for now, is this question answerable here?

amWhy

@soupless I think it is somewhat rude to ask users here to chase three links, and answer, when the OP bothers to type only one sentence, which is unclear, at best.

RRL

Close please: CA, CB, CC

soupless

@amWhy When I first saw it, there was only one link which is the histogram.

Maybe because they edited it, that's why we stated two instances from a single question

amWhy

@soupless I understand. When I clicked on your link, when the page opened in another tab, only one link was there, but immediately I witnessed the edit resulting in three links. But the test sentence from the OP is unclear.

vitamin d

6:29 PM

psq

soupless

I can't stop, but what is this?

Peter

6:47 PM

@soupless Got an answer and a defending comment - unbelievable !

soupless

@Peter Should I flag the question, though?

Peter

@soupless I would first wait for negative feedback.