whatever, quid - 2020-06-07

amWhy

00:50

@quid I've received four downvotes in the last twelve hours. (Two about ten minutes ago.) If you prefer I flag any additional such votes, I'll do so.

Sorry, @quid. I know it's late for you. Get back to me when you can.

quid

02:40

@amWhy I'll check. I'm also dealing with the meta issue.

quid

02:59

I am glad that you disengaged in CURED.

Rithik Kapoor

While there may be a legitimate discussion to be had around this question, this is not a way to start it. — quid ♦ 27 mins ago

@quid how must it start then?

quid

@RithikKapoor that's not a subject for this chatroom. And, you leave this chat now, and don't come back any time soon.

@RithikKapoor sorry, I confused the rooms;

Rithik Kapoor

@quid I am ready to work with you

quid

I thought this was still in CURED.

Rithik Kapoor

I made sure that I am in the right chat room this time

quid

03:09

As said the focus on the chat-room is a red-herring.

It is also not clear how or under which title one could forbid users to vote. Except if they vote non-sensicaly.

There seems to be an idea that there is some collusion going on. But that is not really pertinent as I explained.

SE specifically provides lists of posts that have close or delete votes.

Everyone could just as well vote from there.

You would never see it. The existence of the room makes the process more transparent. It allows everyone to see what happens.

2

The official lists are not visible to you.

Rithik Kapoor

@quid but it also allows users of the room to corral votes which is my main issue here

Instead of just debating with you, I would like the opinion of the community

which is why I posted my question

quid

@RithikKapoor the software allows that too.

Rithik Kapoor

The software allows it but should it be done? I don't think so. Everyone should vote independently without any influence

Anyways, how do we go about having a discussion/poll on meta the proper way?

quid

@RithikKapoor yes it should be done. That's why there are review queues too.

Rithik Kapoor

Review queues are something entirely different from corralling votes in CURED

quid

03:22

@RithikKapoor the focus attention on posts that got one vote.

That's pretty much the same.

I vote to close; the system makes sure that other that want to express their opinion will find the post.

Rithik Kapoor

Well we can agree to disagree then

quid

Same thing.

@RithikKapoor maybe you explain how it is so very different.

Rithik Kapoor

I didn't come here to start another debate

I came here to know how do we go about having a discussion/poll on meta the proper way?

quid

@RithikKapoor in any case it's not very clear why you feel overly concerned. Would a user with a relevant foot-print on the site bring it up it might seem more honest.

Rithik Kapoor

I am willing to work on this with you

quid

03:25

@RithikKapoor what you want to discuss is not up for debate.

Xander Henderson

@RithikKapoor Even if I grant your assertion that the behaviour in CURED is an exemplar of "vote corralling" (I don't, by the way, but suppose that I do...), can you point more than the occasional question brought up in CURED which conforms to site standards?

Are there high quality (not just adequate, or borderline) posts which are being mentioned?

What percentage of the posts brought up in CURED are of sufficient quality to be debated?

Rithik Kapoor

@XanderHenderson I have had this debate multiple times in my answer

Xander Henderson

Yes, and?

As I see it, CURED is only a problem if it is leading to the closure and/or deletion of a significant number of quality posts. I see no evidence that this is the case. What is the objection?

Rithik Kapoor

@XanderHenderson It is my opinion that the community should decide which question stay and which do not

Xander Henderson

Via what mechanism?

Rithik Kapoor

03:29

By voting themselves

I do not see why is it a problem to let the community decide whether or not they want CURED

Xander Henderson

That is precisely what is happening...

2

Rithik Kapoor

@XanderHenderson no it is not

Xander Henderson

Are not those who participate in CURED members of the community?

Are they not voting?

Rithik Kapoor

my question is being silenced by CURED members

Xander Henderson

Is CURED not an open and transparent forum?

No, it isn't.

Rithik Kapoor

03:30

@XanderHenderson yes but a small fraction of it

@XanderHenderson nope. I have given the reason in my answer

Xander Henderson

@RithikKapoor Only a tiny fraction of the site's membership participates in meta. Only a tiny fraction manages the review queue. How is this different?

2

Rithik Kapoor

The tiny fraction that participates in meta >> The tiny fraction that participates in CURED

Xander Henderson

@RithikKapoor Simply "nope". It is hard to believe that you are arguing in good faith when you cannot support your claims...

@RithikKapoor Yes, and?

Rithik Kapoor

which is much better

@XanderHenderson I have supported my claims in my question which you have obviously not read

Xander Henderson

@RithikKapoor Why? Anyone is free to participate in CURED. They don't even have to speak up, or even show up in the side bar; they can read the entire transcript without ever making the presence known.

3

@RithikKapoor I have read your answer.

But thank you for the condescension. Again, it makes clear that you are not really arguing in good faith.

Rithik Kapoor

03:35

@XanderHenderson If you think that showing up in the side bar without saying a word counts as being able to participate then we should end our conversation here

Xander Henderson

Yeah, that's not what I said.

quid

Many users vote. It's just not visible.

The entire debate is based on a false premise.

2

There is users that closereview thousands of questions that are never or hardly ever seen in CURED.

Rithik Kapoor

@quid if you think that my opinions are wrong then why don't unlock my question and let the community downvote it

why silence my question if you believe so strongly that you are right

quid

@RithikKapoor what you ask there is not a relevant question.

2

Rithik Kapoor

why remove all the evidence of amWhy abusing a new user

Xander Henderson

03:39

@RithikKapoor You also never answered my question: can you point to posts brought up in CURED which you genuinely think are of high quality---not just marginal "some people might vote the other way, but I can see why someone might vote to close this" quality, but actual high quality posts?

2

What percentage of the posts brought up in CURED do such posts comprise?

quid

If you want to discuss how to integrated more users in the voting, then start a discussion about this.

Rithik Kapoor

@quid I do not believe you are acting in good fake by silencing my question and removing all the evidence

quid

@RithikKapoor I am not a fool.

3

Do you believe that I believe that this was all a coincidence?

Rithik Kapoor

@XanderHenderson as I said before I am not here to do any more debates, I am here to discuss how we can reopen my question in a proper way

Since I do not see that we will be able to reach a compromise I think it is time to contact SE authorities for having my perfectly valid question silenced

good day

Zacky

09:17

@quid well, just because the software allows it, are voting rings (quid pro quo situations) allowed in SE?

quid

11:42

@Zacky the point is that it is not only that the software allows it, it is that "SE specifically provides lists of posts that have close or delete votes."

And "I vote to close; the system makes sure that other that want to express their opinion will find the post."

The very point of the review queues is to focus attention and votes where they might be needed.

2

The situation is not at all analogous with that of voting rings.

It would be somewhat, if say, the software would issue messages like: "Hey quid! User Zacky upvoted three of your posts lately, maybe you have some shared interests, check out their profile here."

But the system does not at all do that. It specificially does not reveal who up/down voted ones posts.

Zacky

12:03

I'm not sure then if I expressed my question well, as I'm talking about voting rings in question about close/deletion votes. Let's say if you put a list of question for closure and I put one too. Is it allowed to do a quid pro quo in SE about this? E.g. I vote yours only because you vote my list. I'm pretty sure the software can't detect this.

@quid Mind if I ask also what do you mean by foot-print on the site? Why is this case not honest?

amWhy

@Zacky I'm surprised you don't express a valid concern for those who post reopen and undelete requests regularly.

...on a quid pro quo basis, e.g., in GENTLE?

2

quid

12:23

@Zacky for votes to close and delete a first important criterion is if the votes are compatible with the guidelines.

This evaluation should be done by each user that votes.

That is the point of having more than one user evaluating it.

In that sense voting to close and to delete only because somebody else voted on it is not in the spirit of the process.

Or also only because somebody else asked you to do it.

In case there should be some explicit "trading" involved this could be seen as aggravating, or if not as aggravating then as corroborating for a suspicion of unsound evaluation.

Zacky

Thanks for the explanation. Is it okay to link here a specific case (it's publicly available) about this thing to get some input, or should I put it in a flag?

quid

@Zacky maybe start with flag. But don't flag in chat please. If it is about a post (or some posts) flag that post. If there is no post to be identified flag some post of an involved user or one of your posts.

@amWhy indeed. Corrected.

amWhy

12:40

@quid :-)

Zacky

@quid sure.

quid

13:44

@Zacky by foot-print I basically meant activity, involvement, impact, like it is used in carbon footprint.

amWhy

@quid Can I speak with you privately, only for today?

quid

@amWhy sure. Just give me a few minutes. (Say 10.) I'm in the middle of something.

amWhy

@quid Sure, no problem.

Zacky

14:10

@quid I'm not sure then how to interpret this message. To me it gives the impression that you preferred not to discuss something because an user wasn't footprint on the site. I believe the message itself is what we should look at and from here to draw a conclusion about the honestity of a message, not whether someone has >400k reputation or is a 7/24 active or wasn't active at all publicly (maybe just stalking as an example).

Basically I see no issue if someone with no activity concerns about something and I think this reason shouldn't stop them from speaking out their concern (as long as it's appropriate obviously).

Anyway, given that that account got deleted, perhaps you knew more.

quid

@Zacky that's arguably a reasonable position, but indeed your last comment is to the point.

I would however also say that there are limits to the attention we should pay to opinions coming from accounts with no or hardly any activity on the site. Of course we need to listen to concerns of new users, and certainly one does not need to be a "power users" to be involved in debates. But if stiring up meta-controversy is the main activity of an account it does raise questions.

3

And even it is not stiring up controversy the idea is that the site is shaped by its users, and not random folks that like to discuss on the internet.

2

Zacky

@quid I'd also like to point again that new users (more like new accounts) can know a lot about the site. Perhaps I already gave this example in the past, but it's publicly available that you deleted your account on MathOverflow, if you would like to go there and express your concern (with an icognito account), people will think you're new, but I don't see why should this count.

I'm speaking generally here, not about the specific case from today.

quid

14:29

@Zacky an issue to me is that it raises confidence if users try to be transparent in their approach.

3

quid

14:46

Incidentally my first post on meta Mathematics could serve as example.

11

A: Downvoting to order?

I am sort of new to this site but some might know me from a place close by. I find this discussion very interesting on abstarct grounds. It never is quite clear to me why there is such a, in my opinion, huge difference between upvotes and downvotes in peoples perception. Don't get me wrong, I do ...

When I wrote it I had maybe 200 points (including association bonus), the account was not even a month old and actual activity had only started three or fours dayys prior.

However at that time I was still on MO and it was clear that various users involved, including the author of the question, would know me.

Beyond the transparency it is also a question of self-awareness, if this is a good word. I do think it is alright, even desirable, that a new user does ask questions and they can also express their opinion. But it is still desirable and helpful if they are aware that maybe they miss some context.

2

amWhy

15:04

@quid In that spirit, and in a spirit of reconciliation, I think this was my very first question on meta.math. Enjoy! :-)

(And naive me thought there was discord and tension, then in 2011!)

(Also, new answers there are always welcome!)

quid

@amWhy thanks for sharing.

Xander Henderson

16:14

Man, my first meta post seems boring by ccomparison:

8

Q: Is the [orientation] tag useful?

According to the tag description, the orientation is: For question[sic] regarding the notion of orientation both in topology and in global analysis. There is no further information in the tag wiki. A quick perusal of the first page of questions tagged with orientation (of which there are o...

Hi, @JyrkiLahtonen!

And, rereading that topic, it seems that no action was ever taken. Sigh...

I wish I could put a bounty on editing tag descriptions...

Zacky

17:11

@quid I'm not sure what to take from this, I mean I agree with what you said. Also your situation was a positive case, where nobody complained about your account unless I missed something. All I'm saying is that they shouldn't complain publicly either if you weren't known from MO, they can always use flags if something seems inappropriate.

@quid In my opinion it's better to not have such messages, surely they're not the worst, but I don't see how it's relevant at all in the discussion. It also seems unwelcoming relating someones concern or messages with their site activity. But your opinion might differ.

amWhy

@Zacky credibility ought to be a concern of all users. The same holds true about claimed proofs of open problems that appear on main. A new account making overreaching accusations against other users, when the new account has existed only for a day or two, is a legitimate reason to raise questions.

quid

17:34

@Zacky this might be true in general, in the specific case it was mostly a "hint" for that particular user.

However, independent of this particular case, there is a problem in that it is trivial to be "new."

While we should not be overly suspecting, we also should not be overly naive and gullible. There are plenty of bad faith actors.

Knight

@quid Don’t take me wrong, I just want to know under which rule Rithik got suspended? (I really mean it, I don’t have any issues with any mods on Maths.SE)

quid

17:51

@Knight I don't want to go into all details, but if you paid attention in CURED, they had confirmed that they are a certain user on math.se. That user is now even deleted.

Knight

@quid Means he had multiple accounts and he used them for illegitimate purposes ?

quid

@Knight I will neither confirm nor deny this.

Knight

@quid I understand, for some purpose you don’t want to say anything about that matter.

Xander Henderson

@Knight You should also consider that @quid is not allowed to discuss the nature of suspensions. Moderators are almost certainly bound by rules regarding confidentiality.

Knight

@XanderHenderson Yes, I understand. But what if this little thing goes up to Comunity Managers? We were having a peaceful day-to-day business on Maths.SE and everything was normal. I don’t want more [“stepping down and taking a break”]physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12654/…) from good contributors

Xander Henderson

18:03

@Knight How would your knowing the details of the suspension in any way effect whether or not the CMs are involved? I don't see the connection...

Knight

@XanderHenderson Those things are unrelated

I asked you what will happen if this thing will go up to CMs and something like that happens again?

Dmckee, Shog9, Robert and many many others are not replaceable, that void is permanent. I don’t want repetitions of any those things

quid

@Knight it's not about the specific case, as alluded to by Xander, it's a general policy not to discuss such things in much detail or at all. I actually said rather more than I usually would, since it was all publicly visible anyway.

Xander Henderson

@Knight everyone is replaceable. Indeed, I think that it is a good thing to replace those in power with some regularity.

People burn out and move on to other things. New ideas and practices are required.

Long-serving administrators become despots.

And so on.

This is, after all, the motivation behind term-limits in various political bodies around the world.

Knight

@XanderHenderson Some four year mod, aged 27 years tend to think he is king of this world

I agree with you, long term mods become despotic. But exception is @robjohn

Xander Henderson

@Knight I am sure that I have no idea what you are talking about.

@Knight I don't believe that there are exceptions in this case. I think that robjohn does a good job, but his level of activity appears relatively low compared to the past. I am not suggesting that he be replaced, but no one can maintain a high level of activity and involvement forever. It is certain that he will eventually burn out or otherwise decide that his time is better spent on some other project.

Knight

18:12

@XanderHenderson It’s about a mod on Physics.SE and any user from PSE will know who is he. He is despotic and he called me “ominious”

Xander Henderson

@Knight If you say so. I am not involved there.

Knight

@XanderHenderson Yes, and if you like I can tell you everything. But I’m sure you don’t want to get into all that :-)

But you people are so nice, mods over there don’t talk to normal users in such a respectful way.

amWhy

18:50

@Knight describing someone as "despotic" is far more offensive than describing someone as "ominous". I'm sorry you had your feelings hurt, but please stop taking every opportunity you have, on non-related sites, to complain about it.

2

Xander Henderson

19:11

@amWhy Or, perhaps more accurately, describing someone as despotic is far more offensive than suggesting that someone might inadvertently be behaving in a manner which others might consider ominious.

amWhy

@XanderHenderson Yes, more accurate, and true, too!

Xander Henderson

When reading something on the internet, it is best to assume that the author has good intentions. You should read comments with the best possible interpretation in mind. This avoids a lot of conflict.

In this case, you were given a very mild rebuke: "Hey, please don't do this. Other users might find your behaviour ominous."

Note that this is in response to a comment you made which was in violation of the code of conduct.

I fail to find a similarly mild or generous interpretation of the comment "It’s about a mod on Physics.SE and any user from PSE will know who is he. He is despotic and he called me “ominious”"

amWhy

@Xander ^^^You might want to address this to @Knight.

Knight

@XanderHenderson If you have time I can tell you whole history of that comment and why only that user called me “ominous” and not the others, especially to whom I requested it

Knight

19:29

It won’t do anything if people over here do not have empathy for me, it’s just the way word is, we all are all alone

The only thing that maters is YOU and your OWN FEELINGS and if that’s hurt then ...

Xander Henderson

@Knight I disagree, and find this mentality appalling. You can only be offended if you chose to be offended. Based on the evidence which you have provided here, you made an inappropriate comment, were mildly rebuked, and took offense at the form of the rebuke.

The appropriate response would be to say "Hey, please don't call me 'ominous'." Complaining about it on a different forum is not appropriate.

For comparison, @amWhy is often misgendered. The typical response is "Please don't assume that we are all guys / men / hims / etc."

Pulling stats out of my @$$: 80% of the time, this is followed by a brief apology and everyone gets on with their lives. Another 19% of the time, there is no further response, and everyone gets on with their lives. Every once in a while, someone gets upset by this mild rebuke and explains how "guys can mean a person of any gender."

I suspect that if you had simply responded "Hey, please don't call me ominious", the situation would have been resolved.

Knight

Okay

How long suspension I’m going to get? Permanent?

Xander Henderson

@Knight Why do you assume that you are going to be suspended?

amWhy

@Knight I don't see that you are suspended. I wouldn't worry about it. Just let's all try to get along? :-)

Let's all try to work hard to assume the best of intentions from other users on math.se. I can't speak for other sites, but let's commit to that much, here, @Knight, okay?

Knight

19:49

Yes, I agree. I don’t have any hard feelings for any user on Maths.SE

Thank you all for giving me a chance for reconciliation

Thank you

amWhy

@Knight You bet!! Welcome!!

Xander Henderson

20:43

UGH... copy-editing your own work SUCKS!

:\

user462942

21:08

Hi @amWhy

amWhy

@Joanna Hello!

user462942

@amWhy How's it going? :)

user462942

Are you a math professor?

amWhy

@Joanna Pretty well. How about for you? How are you doing?

@Joanna Yes.

user462942

I'm ok, getting ready to start my PhD this fall.

user462942

21:11

Oo nice :)

user462942

I'm self-studying functional analysis at the moment -- such a cool subject.

user462942

And so natural an extension to introductory analysis, linear algebra and topology. I wish I had knew sooner.

user462942

What's your research area @amWhy?

quid

22:51

@Joanna and you do not yet have an account on our site?

quid

23:04

hello @skillpatrol new image?

skillpatrol

yup

on my mobile account, actually

it takes skill to walk and text :-)

quid

@skillpatrol the mods of this site don't accept any liability in case of accidents. ;-)

skillpatrol

Liability is a huge social media topic these days, my friend

Re: #BLM

even the US wants to hold China liable for the pandemic

I don't think me, walking into a tree is of much concern to the SE lawyers @quid :-)

quid

I hope you'll manage to just avoid it.

skillpatrol

Come to think of it, I think New Jersey past a by-law about that...

quid

23:14

But hey maybe there'd be an "echo" of the sound.

skillpatrol

lol

quid

I think I never so as many people in this room as today. Usually it's just @amWhy, you and I.

skillpatrol

yeah, times are a changin'

The dawning of a new era :-)

quid

I'll have to finish something. Don't set the room on fire in my absence.

skillpatrol

may I nominate amWhy for your co-room owner?

whatever quid et al

quid

23:21

Not sure if she'd want to own that mess.

user462942

23:48

@quid Not at the moment. I'm a little bit everywhere right now, with the whole quarantine thing for covid, the protests, and some research conflict that I'm trying to safely move on from, even though it means I will lose a great discovery.

user462942

@quid Are you a math professor?

user462942

I'd love to hear some thoughts about pure vs. applied paths to take.

user462942

Time for ice cream; a scoop of pistachio-almond and a scoop of green tea. Bye ...

skillpatrol

cya pal

Transcript for

$Mathematics$ whatever, quid