An informal proposal: Would it be of great help to add "have no idea" and "clueless" as key words into Smoke Detector? I find them highly correlated with PSQs.

Anyone have good examples of someone just trying to rep hunt? I have seen people talk about it on here before not quite sure what that looks like.

@MathIsLife12 Here is me going full rep hunt mode back in 2017 PSQ? Tick. No OP participation? Tick. Improvement comments? Tick. Quick answer (in $17$ minutes)? Tick. Uninformative answer not wanting to generalize? Tick. Duplicate? Tick. Rep earned? Tick. Late comment trying to salvage pride by asking for context? Tick. I did my fair share of PSQ box ticking ages ago, and...

... since I'm aware of the fact that I can't judge whether others have this attitude or not, I can say that I had this attitude while answering that question. You can see how many visual cues I gave away : I was aware of context rules, but at that point of time I was more into : "this question is interesting - solving it will be helpful for me - it's easy, some free rep in the bag". I retrieved this from a user script :

that thankfully revealed I didn't do this kind of stuff as often as I thought I did (about 10-15 terrible instances out of 1700+ answers), but some of the questions I attempted are closed, about $40$ of them. I assume I was rep chasing each time : when I see the comments that were left there, way back in Dec. 2016 and Feb. 2017, I see how far I've come!

math.stackexchange.com/q/4152971/876009 close

@MathIsLife12 A short note about the crank mathematics we discussed earlier : The basic premise of this person is that irrational numbers don't exist, in the sense that one can't measure them in relation with another quantity. Therefore, he says that the real number line itself is a fake concept. He also says that we like to associate limits of sequences with a number, like $1+1/2+1/4+... = 1$ : this is apparently to do with Euler, and he calls it a fallacy , and says that math doesn't...

math.stackexchange.com/q/4150857/876009 For this question I posted a flag i.sstatic.net/Mx5pW.png but the flag was declined but question was closed so why declining of flag

... work this way. The idea of why Gabriel rejects various formulations like Dedekind and Cauchy's real number constructions is because he feels that the constructions don't measure these numbers as much as they abstractly position them. For example, he says that Dedekind's construction of a real number kind of abstractly circularly uses the positioning of that number, while the construction he provides, of successively locating the number between partitions, does precisely that.

I think what John wants, in some sense, is to build math from a foundation where things are associated to how they are measured and how we locate them, rather than just finding a way to abstractly give meaning to intuition. I mean, this isn't a bad world view , so I don't have any problems reading further : but he insults people too much. For that reason , I think I stop my investigation here.

math.stackexchange.com/questions/4149464/… need one more dupe vote

Can anyone suggest videos based on elementary problem solving techniques

math.stackexchange.com/questions/4153470/… this seems like a dupe, no? If not can I answer it?

Should this be migrated on Physics?

Or, maybe, never mind.

@punemath Arief Anbiya's channel contains very good videos , you can see them here. (Note that we can't have a discussion about this here, since this is not the room for such discourse : but Arief has got a great load of questions). You may also check out the channel "Mind your decisions" by Presh Talwalkar on Youtube, link is here. These focus on ...

... elementary problem solving techniques, and are excellent channels.

close as duplicate. Dupe target mentioned in comments.

Should people answer PSQs?

@TeresaLisbon Look at the last post in the room "interesting posts". amWhy wants to forbid users to mention their opinion about the "base one system" :(

@RussianBotWhoKnowsYourIP: you should have figured that out by now. After all you are a smart bot!

@ParamanandSingh If in case, should we answer PSQs that are first posts once, and all others are just recommendations about improving the post, adding context, etc.?

What I mean is that, answer PSQs that are first posts once, EoQS after?

@soupless: there is no need to answer PSQs, rather the focus should be on improving them irrespective of the fact whether they are first posts or not.

For posts by new users you may need to put more effort via comments to improve the question. For questions by experienced users who are not ready to fix the PSQ the right recourse is to close

@ParamanandSingh Ok, thank you.

should this be closed or not ? If yes, with which reason ?

not addressing the question - it's in the neighborhood, but the setting is wrong and there's no actual proof in here. (Disclosure: I have an answer there.)

@Peter I'm leaning yes, close for context, but I'm a little hesitant. Basically, I think these sorts of problems need a bit more oomph in terms of explaining why we should care - otherwise you could just repeat this for every integer and that seems excessive. Further, what method of solution is the asker looking for? Computers/no computers? Why not just ask your own computer to prime check it?

wrong statement , nervertheless answered

@Peter that's been closed for an hour - did you mean a different link?

Closed yes, we need some downvotes to delete it.

@Peter oops, I see what you were going for.

here one answerer wants to delete its answer. what should be done?

@supinf Downvote it? It was wrong to start with, so we can't be having an answer at that level with 5 up votes, right? We can retract the downvote if the answer is improved.

@supinf flagging for mods might be a good idea.

@supinf This is not an answer whatever the question initially was.

The 6 upvotes are impossible to be understood.

Why should a user not be able to delete his/her own answer ? This would be very strange !

close this PSQ

Please see this answer math.stackexchange.com/questions/4132907/… This was changed after receiving upvotes. Now it has nothing to do with question.

is this liable to closure? math.stackexchange.com/q/4153907/357390

Thanks Ms Lisbon

close as dupe

(the duplicate is in the comments)

Why is David Ullrich trying to delete his upvoted answers?

He is littering the low quality posts queue

@ParclyTaxel I noticed that too. He commented here saying "A large number of moderators just told me that my answers do nothing but add noise to the site. I certainly want to try to clean that up on my way out..."

I have rolled back some of those answers, which could be construed as vandalism

@ParclyTaxel Yes, I noticed that. I think, however, that it is a moderator situation. If he is determined to deface his answers one-by-one like this then he will just re-do your rollbacks.

I guess we could ping @XanderHenderson here and ask if the mods are aware? I flagged a post, but flags take a while and the "defacing" actions are pretty spammy.

@ParamanandSingh so yeah ok

please close this PSQ

Also the answerer in the above question thinks that asker has given sufficient attempt. I doubt that however.

this is a question where the asker engages via comments and improves their question.

@ParamanandSingh I think it is not totally obvious if this is a PSQ or not.

@soupless I flagged another question by the same user for migration yesterday... It's not migrated, but I'm not sure if it's because migration flags are slow to deal with or if reviewers disagreed. Though if migrated to Physics.SE it'd still be closed, because they don't accept homework questions.

I think one user is revenge defacing all their answers because they got a mod warning about EoQS...

Some of those changes are being reverted, but they seem to be still doing it.

@ParclyTaxel You're right... I guess I should have read a few posts back before I posted...

Well I guess looking on the bright side, this at least shows that the mods are working on EoQS... :P

Is there some sort of automated suspension if the user gets on the low quality review too often/too quickly?

@supinf: initial version was just the PSQ and then they put their attempt based on discussion in comments. There is a mistake in their attempt albeit a minor one. Fixing that the problem is solved. That's probably the job of an answer to fix that.

@supinf: initial version was just the PSQ and then they put their attempt based on discussion in comments. There is a mistake in their attempt albeit a minor one. Fixing that the problem is solved. That's probably the job of an answerer to fix that with some more explanation if the asker has any confusion.

^^^^^ @quid !!! , @Xander !!!

I've encountered well over a dozen or more of such attempts from this user alone today, all within 1 hour...

I see others early have pointed this out, as well.

there is no end to supply of PSQs

@ParamanandSingh You were nicer than I was, on that dismal question!!

@ParamanandSingh the OP have added some contexts.

@amWhy: anyway the important point is that our comments worked and led to some improvement. @ArcticChar: I think this context is fine. There is a comment explaining further steps and maybe the asker will figure out a solution based on it.

@ParamanandSingh Indeed. It's a start. I do wonder sometimes, particularly with girls/young woman, there may be a factor involving fear about posting their work, out of fear of being judged or ridiculed or shamed. I've wanted to address some variations in approach that empower such woman, rather than reinforce their fears. At the same time, it's likely not an issue that only some women face. Being asked to show work can feel like they might be exposing "how stupid they think they are."

So @Xander's suggestions of thinking in broader terms than "showing effort", about providing context. Just a thought for discussion; nothing needing to be addressed here now.

@ParamanandSingh You don't need to accept Toby Mak's belief that the PSQ showed sufficient effort. The same user could say that "Just by coming to math.se and registering and copying an exercise into an answer field, and submitting it, the OP demonstrated sufficient effort that deserves an answer." There is a line in the sand, that needs to be drawn. Just become a user intimidates doesn't mean they are correct. People get ticketed all the time for speeding; they don't get off the hook ...

by responding: "I don't think I was speeding".

@ArcticChar Are you around, perchance?

@amWhy don't worry. I respected their opinion and flagged for EoQS based on my opinion.

@ParamanandSingh Good for you! You can handle users like that much more calmly that I am prone to do! ;D

→ 1 message moved to ­Trash

Have any moderators dealt with the close reveiw, say this week? The numbers in the queue are lower now, but I suspect that is likely because colleges and Universities with spring semesters/trimester, are not currently open, i.e., most students not currently in classes? This tends to happen over summer, as well.

@amWhy: it is showing 267 in close queue (I have already reviewed my 20). That looks much better than hovering around 500

@ParamanandSingh Indeed! I suspect mods have been able to recede at this point!!

We need these "catch up" breaks in academia's schedules!!

@amWhy: but then mods have got their hands busy with EoQS flags. So I guess they really have no breaks.

@ParamanandSingh Indeed! GAME ON over in the cafe: For those I can't ping from the cafe: @supinf, @soupless, @ParclyTaxel, @user21820, @user1729, @ArcticChar, @TeresaLisbon, @TheSimpliFire, @TheAmplitwist Word Search!!!

@MathIsLife12 I'm not sure that this is an entirely appropriate line of conversation, Teresa Lisbon's response notwithstanding. We cannot know what motivates another person, and singling out particular users is not really appropriate here.

@soupless Probably not. It has the form of a homework question, and Physics has a very stringent anti-homework policy.

@ElliotYu We are aware of the issue. In the future, please just use flags. Again, calling out particular users in chat is not really okay.

@XanderHenderson Thanks for attending to that. That user, who I shall not name, literally took three hours of my morning away. Of course, I flagged. I just wish I knew how many posts they'd self vandalize so I could have cast one flag listing 15 posts.

@Arbuja Because I see that you are in here, and because you have asked a number of questions about this post of yours: the question is entirely unmotivated. Again, you are asking for a probability measure which satisfies a bunch of properties, but you have given us no indication as to why we might care about such a measure.

What motivates the question?

Why are all of these properties important?

Into what context does that question fit?

You should think about coming up with an "elevator pitch" for your question. In one paragraph (two or three sentences), you should be able to explain what motivates the question and, at a high level, what the question actually is. Someone should be able to read that paragraph, at the top of the post, and have some idea what they are in form.

@Xander The problem is, the user you are addressing has made at least 20 edits to their question of concern, already, and posted on meta complaining, and pretending they had no clue why you closed it. Just to be clear, are you suggesting they make up to ten more edits to correct it? I think at this point it would be more productive to explain, clearly, as you have, why the question was closed, and provide advice on future questions. But You likely know more than I on this matter.

@Xander, btw, to me the question served merely as huffing and puffing, after which they posted an answer to the question they asked. Given more than 20 edits, more than 20 bumps of the post, it's time in the reopen queue, I just wonder why you would continue to advice the asker/selfanswerer, how to improve that particular questionzzz/

But, those are just my thoughts, and no more than that. I'm sure you've got this matter handled, but the meta question ate away at some of my time today (OP since deleted it, so there's really nothing you're missing).

@XanderHenderson I’m not a professional. I’m a merely an undergraduate. I thought if I give examples and explain my examples then it would be clear giving what I want. But it seems it would still be unclear.....My only is to wait till I have a p.h.d and explain everything. I realize have the time to see every example because every example will be full of careless errors....At least I tried :(

@Arbuja That isn't the point at all. Why do you care about such a measure? What is is that you are hoping to do with such a thing? If you can't explain that in two or three sentences, then Math SE is not really the right place for it.

Perhaps this is a conversation which you should have with an advisor in your mathematics department? Perhaps there is someone there who can help you out.

Also, note that you don't have to explain everything. Indeed, you should consider explaining less, but doing a better job of motivating your question.

@XanderHenderson You’re right. I may have one in Indiana but I’m not sure if they accept undergraduates

Thank you anyways

close as opinion based?

@XanderHenderson Okay. I'll stick to flags in the future. Thank you for attending to it.

@ParesseuxNguyen Cute kitty.

@Oliver, Is that your kitty? Beautiful!

@amWhy That is actually me... yes that is Mittens!

@OliverDiaz Adorable. I just posted my cat, Shai, when he was a 6 month old kitten. Now 12 years old!

@amWhy Cute cat too... Mittens is also 12. I have four cats in total; together they for the band HISS!

@OliverDiaz Wow! Very cool!. Feel free when you have time to share a group photo some time!

@amWhy Thank you! It's my kitty

@ParesseuxNguyen We're having a kitty-fest today :-)

close