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"I don't think quid (or anyone) really believes that " well, I certainly do believe what I wrote, and in my mind there is very little doubt about my assessment. One might discuss about nuances, like if "boost the ego" is the best formulation, or make distinctions between "mathematical ego" and "general ego" or some such things but the general point stands.

A considerable part of the motivation of some is the satisfaction they get out of showing that they are more knowledgeable or otherwise better than others.

If this is controversial than one might drop the comparative part and say:

a considerable part of the motivation of some is the satisfaction they get out of showing that they are knowledgeable or otherwise good.

That'd not be particularly nefarious, even normal in a way, as long as it does not result in bad side effects.

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@quid I don't know where you get this strange idea (projection?) but your guesses about motivations are quite incorrect in the cases I mention. Maybe you have never met someone in real life who has devoted many decades of their life to (volunteer) teaching for completely unselfish reasons. They do exist (and played a large role in the success of sci.math). One should be much more careful about making such insinuations lest you alienate them all from this community.

How is motivation pertinent to math meta? Let's please stop this unending "i'm so pure I'm gold" etc and focus on math on math.se. K?

@amWhy Because - as I said long ago at the start of this thread - due to many extreme misunderstandings and misjudements - this site continues to devise foolish "policies" that result in flushing the baby with the bathwater. Long ago I thought these were mainly mistakes made my very inexperienced members. But now I realize that these views have become so pervasive that even more experienced members can hold these strange have eneand grossly incorerect beliefs

@BillDubuque Well I believe we have reached a vicious circle, and no conclusion, resolution will come, particularly as long as parties in the conversation believe they know "the truth". So, unless others want to engage you further, I'll remain silent, as there is little point in discussing further with you and your apparent stance that allows for no other input, perceptions, etc, other than your own.

Please don't continue to repeat what you've already expressed. That's not progress, and it will only encourage a deletion of the ensuing vicious cycle which is already documented.

@amWhy I recall you objecting many times in the past that others have misjudged your actions, intent and motivations. So I am quite surprised that you are not more understanding when other members make analogous claims.

@user170039 Because I think anything that can be done to curtail divisive policies is well-worth the effort. The community has already lost too many talented prolific teachers due to extreme misunderstandings and misjudgements like those above. Without getting to the heart of the matter there will never be an hope of finding compromises that serve to unify the community instead of continuing to divide it even further.

Let's try to figure it out together.

You kicked somebody for no clear reason.

You then got kicked.

...

@BillDubuque "I don't know where you get this strange idea" observation. Let's not get hung up on sci.math specifically. The point is that the actual points and credit system are not really the root of the evil, it maybe acts as an amplifier.

The root of the evil, as often are shortcomings of individuals, like vanity.

@quid Correction: misjudged unfounded accusations of vanity in this instance.

Why doesn't reputation come with it a multiplier to the power of your vote. Why isn't it that high rep users' votes are more powerful than low rep users' votes? Is this a terrible idea? Why? Is it logistically possible?

@quid Do you think that Matt E, KcD, Lubin etc are motivated by vanity?

This is what I was able to find regarding past discussion about this suggestion.

@Mason Because rep is not a good measure of anything. One could write an AI bot that answered calculus questions that would soon by the highest rep user. Perhaps someone already has.

@BillDubuque Matt E. wrote about his motivation, which actually can be read as "boost ego" in a constructive and healthy way. Beyond that I certainly won't discuss individuals one by one. Sorry that my basically trivial observation made you so uneasy.

@quid You're projecting again. I'm not uneasy (since I really couldn't care less what you think about me). But I do care much about the damage caused to this site about such tremendously naive misjudgements.

@user170039 You kick me, for no reason; gives me plenty of reason to kick you, for good reason.

@quid When you wrote about Matthew Emerton, did you mean this answer? What do you really like about working with/contributing to math-SE?

@user170039 Oops, yes, totally a misclick! How I ironic we both misclicked. Oops sorry, I meant to ignore you.

BTW since the topic is what are motivations of people to contribute here, perhaps past threads about this on meta might be mentioned: What do you really like about working with/contributing to math-SE? and Why do you answer questions on math.stackexchange?. (If nothing else we have something to read.)

@user170039 Don't blame @quid for my "misclick".

Conveniently the "ignore" part is left out in the story above. If now something like an inadvertent kick should happen, it'd seem prudent not to pile on. That said, well, to kick back won't make it into the Great Book of Advice for Perfect Conduct on Stack Exchange, but given the circumstances it's understandable and ultimately rather inconsequential. But yes, a rigid mod might have banned both parties involved.

@user170039 the "ignore" part was not mentioned here. It was hidden behind a link. But it's true that I had not clicked through and might have formulated it differently had I recall that it was in the same comment.

@user170039 maybe I'd said 'conveniently the "ignore" part is minimized'

@quid I see nothing in Matt E.'s answer that implies that he contributes here to "boost his ego". In any case, I asked that question becuase I suspect that you may be making judgments on these matters based on your (mis)judgments of the mathematical (and teaching) competence of the users. But it appears that you think that vanity motivates everyone. That's rather surprising. Is that what you believe?

@user170039 yes everybody will agree that this is a better course of action.

@BillDubuque " I am interested in finding ways to keep myself sharp"

@Mason I proposed something similar in meta recently

Not that every vote is worth more, but high rep users have a limited number of extra powerful votes. The response was that bounties can be used to reward, but I think there is more reward in a highly-rated answer than there is in a bit of rep.

@quid That's a beneficial side-effect of any teaching. There is nothing at all vain about that. Nor is it likely to play a major role in motivation for the old-timers we were discussing earlier. If one's primary goal is to keep sharp (at higher levels) then Math.SE would be an extremely inefficent way to do so.

@BillDubuque well I did not use the word vanity or vain in that context. There is really precious little 'evil' in his contributions, so I don't see why you would associate this there.

@quid But you wrote above 'Matt E. wrote about his motivation, which actually can be read as "boost ego"' . Where does he say he contributes to boost his ego? Are we speaking the same language?

@BillDubuque quote completely.

@quid I have no clue what you are talking about. You are making contradictory statements.

' Matt E. wrote about his motivation, which actually can be read as "boost ego" in a constructive and healthy way.'

You left out the emphasized part which changes the tone significantly.

@quid I don't care whether or not you view it as constructive or healthy. What I care about is precisely what you consider to be "boosting his ego". What precisely is that?

The constructive and healthy modifies the "boost ego"

@quid Ok, you're not going to answer - just like above. I won't waste any further time. I am now convinced that you are truly trolling.

@BillDubuque when somebody trains and retrains basic skills this reassures the individual that the skills are (still) there.

@quid fyi: someone who has mastered a subject and tought it over many decades doesn't need to "retrain" and "reassure" themselves. Maybe in a few decades you will appreciate that better

Of course, we often have no way to tell on this site to tell whether someone has taught something for a month or a decade

@CarlMummert The discussion was initially focused on sci.math old-timers who have been teaching there and here (and other places) for many decades

When I think of teaching I think more of institutions of higher learning, rather than Usenet. We often have no way to tell if users here have any actual teaching experience, and in any case I would say the content of their posts is more relevant for our site than speculating on whether anonymous users have teaching experience. For example, if I encounter a highly repped user who I have not interacted with, how do I know if they are a teacher?

@CarlMummert depends on the definition of "actual teaching experience". Maybe there are skills & techniques learnt here you can't learn in higher education.

Maybe the extra dimensions in string theory are where our souls live. Who knows?

@CarlMummert All of the folks I mentioned above have taught at one time or another at university level (some also in non-academic non-usenet contexts).

@BillDubuque maybe, maybe not. If you don't mind me asking why are you a credible source for that type of information?

@quid What information?

@BillDubuque the one in the comment I replied to.

@quid That remark is based on my experience teaching online with those folks over two to three decades. I've never seen any indication that would lead me to believe that they were doing so primarily to "retrain" or "reassure" themselves.

'Primarily'? So it might play a role after all?

@quid As I said above, it's a side-effect, and certainly not something that I would deem to be "ego boosting" or "vain"

Thus, you acknowledge that what I claimed to be an effect is actually an effect. That's progress.

@quid In any case this is a minor point. There is nothing in Matt's answer that supports your strong claim above that "A considerable part of the motivation of some is the satisfaction they get out of showing that they are more knowledgeable or otherwise better than others". Matt never wrote anything that supports that so it is puzzling why you linked to his answer for support of your extreme position

@BillDubuque I also never meant to imply that Matt was one of those some.

@quid Then why did you cite his answer?

@BillDubuque because you brought him up.

@quid So you have no data that supports your claim - only hunches? Do you think that claim applies to any of the old-timers I mentioned above? Folks who have dedicated significant chunks of their lives to help educate other who did not have accessz to good schools, books, etc

@BillDubuque data for what? That some users on this site like to establish their perceived intellectual superiority over others?

@quid Those are your misperceptions. Why you think so negatively about these folks is quite baffling.

@user334732. Can you link your meta post?

@BillDubuque. Maybe reputation is indicator of nothing but I imagine that part of the reason you are currently chatting in this room is because while it's valuable to discuss what currently is... it's also valuable to discuss the ideal of the site.

Reputation is a way that we indicate to users what good behavior and bad behavior is... veterans of the site may have better understanding of what that means.

@BillDubuque It's not "so negatively." There are much worse things one can do than to show off a bit on a math Q&A site (or news group for that matter). But the notion that all are always just selfless and sacrifice themselves for passing on math knowledge, that's just not credible, given the way how things often play out. Maybe it's true for some. But all. Come on. Let's not be naive.

@Mason: I don't agree with "good" versus "bad" - we have many low-rep users who are really exemplars of what we want out of the site, and some high-rep users who are quite the opposite. Unfortunately good and bad are too loaded with value judgments. Often high rep can be associated with a willingness to grind away at easy questions, rather than a sign of true quality - just as with any game that allows players to get high XP by grinding simple battles

@quid: I think that the site designers ensured that nobody has to be selfless because we earn Internet Points

I am not sure I quite understand your disagreement. While it's true that rep needn't represent what we think of as good and bad. Rep is a mechanism that the site uses to indicate to users what good and bad mean.

@CarlMummert

@Mason: that's true but then it's circular to say that we should look at high-rep users to see what good behavior is, if we define good behavior to mean high rep.

In some cases high rep indicates unfortunate behavior, such as not giving others a chance to answer, or it just indicates that someone is willing to grind more that others for XP

Though I wonder what you would guess then... Are 50% of high rep users grinders?

@quid That you have never met someone who is so selfless is not evidence that it is not credible.

@BillDubuque do you consider yourself as selfless?

I haven't done any kind of study to have a guess about percentages, but if I look at the list of highest-rep users, some of them seem to be associated with tags that are very suitable for grinding, such as elementary-number-theory, elementary-set-theory, algebra-precalculus

I also agree with the sentiment at math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7178/…

I also agree with the sentiment and it's part of why I bring it up.

One of the consequences of reorganizing the system a little bit is that it might dissuade high rep users from answering really low level questions

Imagine if getting an accepted answer from a user of rep 100 or below only won you 1 reputation point.

I mean if you have reputation say greater than 10000... where as If a user that had a 1000<reputation<10000 rep answered it it would win them 5 reputation points.

If a user of 100<rep<1000 answered it would win them 10 reputation pts.

You get the idea. motivate users to answer questions nearer to their level.

I think we can probably poke many holes in this idea... but here's a quick way to make me shut up: Is the idea logistically feasible?

For brainstorming, a more extreme option might be that getting 20k is about the same difficulty as now, but then it takes the same amount again to get from 20 to 30, and then the same again from 30 to 35, and the same again for 35 to 37.5, etc. So that nobody can cross 40,000, and eventually rep becomes essentially constant.

I doubt that SE.com is interested in making tweaks, though.

Your answer is: logistically difficult.

Because the logistics involves politics with SE...

I would guess so.

I am not sure what value we win in creating a type of logarithm out of the current rep system... can't we reinterpret everyones reputation by using exponents...

I think a logarithm would be a good start

I'm not sure I get it. Even people get really excited about seeing their score increase than all we have effectively done is dissuade high rep users from answering.

Also... if they want to feel good about the score... they can always reinterpret their score by applying the inverse of your log system...

I think we want low rep users to be answering low rep askers and medium rep askers.

medium rep users answering low, medium , high,

high rep users answering medium and high rep askers.

Well, this suggestion was received quite positively on meta: Letting less-reputable people answer questions.

Yes, I remember posting there. I think it is a good idea, but it requires a certain form of self-control of self-denial, so only users who are in a way particularly selfless will do it

What percentage of users engage with meta though? The way things are received on meta is a measure that comes with it a type of bias in that many users don't engage with it anyway.

It was well received among users who care what the community thinks enough to engage with meta.

@Mason Hmm... I've had a good rummage and I can't find it, which means a. it went down like a lead balloon and was deleted (that happens to a lot of my posts), or b. it was a comment on a related question.

What post are you talking about?

@MartinSleziak. I suggested something like a sliding scale for reputation. Higher rep means more voting power.

@user334732 said that he posted something on the topic but now cannot I find the meta (if it was a meta)

Depending on what you meant by recently, regardless of your reputation you should be able to get to your deleted posts if they were created in the last 60 days. Meta: Is there any way to see my deleted questions or answers?

@Mason yes, it was meta

@MartinSleziak i suggested high rep users get a bigger up-vote. @Mason The specific meta problem being discussed was that hard / inaccessible answers fail to get the upvotes they deserve because too few people know enough to interpret whether they're right or not. Then we end up with high school maths at the top of the ratings and really good stuff with 1 or 2 votes.

@quid Yes

@CarlMummert By far the most cherries to be picked are in calculus and related tags, so it's strange that you omitted that.

@user334732. I mean... I don't know how much of a problem I have with that... Inaccessible answers should be voted in the context that they are inaccessible. I would point out that if 10 low rep users are voting up on answer it might be that should only have as much power as 1 high rep user voting on an answer. Is one way to address this.

@BillDubuque - I missed it but you're right, 5 of the top 10 users by all time rep have "calculus" below their name

Maybe we could lower the amount of rep you win when answering a question tagged: Basic math or something equivalent.

@Mason: I think any system needs to encourage new users strongly. Starting with basic questions is not so bad for them.

I tried to search a bit among deleted questions tagged voting. I saw two question by Mason from this year: What if we could vote on elements of questions? and Can we use reputation as a reward for voting in a way that benefits M.S.E?

I did not find the question by Robert Frost there - but perhaps it was older or some other tag was used.

@Mason my idea was to give users with say over 20k rep a choice of +1 or +5 so they have the power to promote better material. Sometimes rubbish gets promoted because it's a hot network question, sometimes when it's completely wrong.

@MartinSleziak. I didn't post it.

The last message was funny. :-)

Hmm?

It's a bit unclear what you mean by it.

It's obvious that you did not post Robert Frost's question. And it's also obvious that you posted the two questions I linked to.

But I've mentioned those two post just as a tangential remark.

Yeah. Sorry. I posted the things that I have posted... and not the other things. The post that we were hunting for was a post that Robert Frost posted. I was just indicating that were looking for a Robert Frost post/ comment.

Or maybe not. He mentioned also that it might have been a comment.

Right.

@CarlMummert If I were motivated by rep I could easily have 4x the rep by answering calculus questions (I implemented much of the calculus in Macysma so I know well many algorithms, and I invented the first algorithm for limits). But there are 10000 other users who can easily answer those questions.

My time is much better spent exploiting more esoteric expertise (e.g. divisor theory) where we have few experts, and which I believe serves as a better topic to spark interest in pure mathematics - since it easily allows one to showcase many beautiful abstractions (e.g. ideal-theoretic constructs)

@BillDubuque, Then at best the rep system communicates what is good and bad according to the community and at worst we motivate you to waste your time on questions that don't best benefit the community... Maybe the thing to do is incentivize engagment with rarer tags?

PS Above "divisor theory" refers to certain classes or rings that enjoy properties generalizing those of gcds and ideals, e.g. see this answer for links to some introductory expositions.

Big Sigh!! Yawns ... yawns again ... .