The Biosphere

CowperKettle

04:02

@MattDMo thank you!

Chris

07:38

@MattDMo Now he is on meta trying to discuss t his...

terdon

11:49

@MattDMo @Chris he has a point. The homework close reason is used way too often. We really need to do something about that. What we have here is a community that has reached a consensus about a word (homework) that has very little to do with what that word actually means. We then close things that are clearly not homework as homework and expect our users to understand.

I don't know why we even have a "homework" policy. There's nothing wrong with homework. What we don't like is "do my work for me", unresearched, basic questions. And instead of making a custom close reason for it, we have bent the unfortunate homework to fit things it has no business fitting.

What we should do is have something like the general reference close reason on ELU. For example:

> Please include the research you've done. Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references are off-topic.

That way, we can stop with the silliness of using a perfectly good word (homework) as a catch-all for things we don't like.

Mad Scientist

I don't see any need for a custom reason. Most questions of this kind should be closed for other reasons, they're usually either unclear or too broad anyway. And the few that aren't usually are not that bad anyway

terdon

@MadScientist Well, the community seems to feel the need for a "I'm closing this because you're a lazy sod expecting others to do your work for you" close reason.

Chris

@terdon There is indeed no problem with homework, if people show some effort to solve it. This is of course different for 16 year olds and university students.

terdon

My main point is that the "homework" reason is bad for everyone involved. It isn't informative: users don't get why their question was closed. It isn't precise: we tend to apply it kinda as we feel like. And, most importantly, it isn't the standard use of the word!

Mad Scientist

I disagree with the community on that aspect. The generic low effort close reasons were abandoned for a reason by SE on most sites, they're too easily misused

terdon

11:54

Every time we close something as "homework" with absolutely no evidence that it is actually homework, we add to the confusion.

Mad Scientist

What we currently have is the worst of both worlds, we have essentially the problematic "low effort" close reason, just with a misleading label

terdon

Precisely.

And then the OP linked to above went and posted a perfectly civil question on meta, asking for the relevant help page (which they actually checked!) to be corrected and was downvoted for their trouble.

Chris

Then this reason needs to be renamed and our help page updated accordingly.

Downvote in this case most likely means disagreement.

terdon

I doubt it. I think it's far more likely to be "Oh, come on, another meta post about the homework tag?" or someone mistakenly thinking the OP is complaining.

I've been getting progressively more annoyed at the homework close reason for a while now. It really is absurd. While we don't, actually, even consider homework off topic, we have a close reason with that name which doesn't even apply to actual homework questions!

How can we expect users to get the site's scope and expectations if we have such a complex situation. Hell, I've been active here for a few years now, but I've stopped coming here quite so often lately, and I am confused about the homework reason myself.

I get the feeling there are about 3-4 high-rep users who've decided what they want to use it as and apply it everywhere. Closing stuff that should indeed be closed, but doing so in a manner that is bound to confuse new (and old) users.

Mad Scientist

If someone can come up with a rule that is as clear and useful as the general reference one on English, I'd support a custom close reason. But I don't see how this could work, there is a huge diffence between saying "no questions that can be answered by looking it up in a dictionary" and "no questions that can be answered by a textbook"

terdon

12:00

True.

Mad Scientist

I don't think low effort questions should be closed, unless the low effort affects the question in a way that leads to problems. And in those cases, one of the other close reasons is usually appropriate

terdon

How about something like: "Questions that can be answered by a 2 minute Google or Wikipedia search are off topic here. If you have tried to find an answer yourself, please include the research you have done and explain how iot failed to answer your question."

@MadScientist Agreed, really. That's what downvotes are for, after all.

Mad Scientist

4

A: Updating statement on closed reason for no work shown

I've thought about the issue quite a bit in the meantime, and I still don't think this is a good idea. I'm not happy with the way the community has expanded the homework close reason beyond its original purpose. I don't think categorically requiring users to prove they spent some effort before a...

I don't like requiring evidence that they searched themselves. A user that does that without being prompted can often work that into the question effectively. But otherwise it often just leads to clutter and rambling questions

terdon

True.

Well, some research would be useful. I mean, if pasting the question title into google provides the answer, that's a crappy question.

My point and, I think, yours is that crappy != off topic. Crap should be downvoted, not necessarily closed.

Mad Scientist

The ones that are truly crappy are usually also unclear, and not just trivial

terdon

12:07

Yep

Mad Scientist

Or "too broad", which are the typical "How does XYZ work?" when there are entire books about the subject

terdon

At the very least we should change the homework close reason's name. I am convinced it is actively harmful. Especially since nobody can know what the hell it means unless they go through a couple of years worth of meta posts.

Mad Scientist

I think we need the homework reason for actual homework, but only for that

terdon

Or that, yes. As long as we don't apply a word to things not remotely covered by that word.

Mad Scientist

For me, it's for stuff that is essentially an assignment dump, simply an exercise pasted into a question. That stuff is common enough that the close reason makes sense

terdon

12:11

Although I don't see anything wrong with homework. not by definition. Things like "Our teacher told us to do X. I tried A, B and C but I am confused about Y" are fine. What we don't want is the local equivalent of "give me the codez".

@MadScientist It is, yes. The difference here is that we cant close those as "too broad" which is the reason most often used for gimme the codez on other sites.

Homework may well be perfectly specific.

MattDMo

12:39

OK, I started the argument, I'm here.

I don't like the word "homework" either, as has been laboriously agreed upon above. I'm perfectly willing to help in revising that page, and anything else on the site

Maybe we need a new close reason

MattDMo

12:59

@terdon you have to remember that according to SE mantra (well, at least SO mantra, which I'm most familiar with) is that crap should be put on hold, which is supposedly a different state than "closed" in that it can still be worked on and reopened.

The problem with just downvoting garbage is that many OPs never revisit the site again, and their awful questions remain, providing bright signposts for others that they can ask similar questions.

terdon

@MattDMo No, on topic crap should be downvoted, off topic crap should be closed.

@MattDMo Unanswered, downvoted questions are deleted after a while. And we can vote to delete as well. I would much rather vote to delete crap than close it with an inappropriate close reason.

MattDMo

OK, I see your point. I guess as part of this homework revamping, we're going to have to identify exactly how crappy a question has to be before it's OT.

terdon

Yeah. And that is not trivial.

Relevant meta post explaining when questions are deleted by roomba:

267

A: Enable automatic deletion of old, unanswered zero-score questions after a year?

Just to formally document the exact policies we have in place to remove old abandoned / dead questions, the Community user will delete questions in the following circumstances: If the question is more than 30 days old, and ... has −1 or lower score has no answers is not locked ...or... it ...

More detail here:

231

A: How does deleting work? What can cause a post to be deleted, and what does that actually mean? What are the criteria for deletion?

How can a post be deleted? By a user: You can typically delete your own posts at will; for exceptions, see When can’t I delete my own post? below. To delete a post, just use the delete link below it. Moderators can delete any post instantly. Users with reputation ≥ 2k (more precisely, the edit...

> The system will automatically delete closed (not as a duplicate), unlocked questions with zero or negative score having no positively scored or accepted answers or pending reopen votes, that were closed 9 or more days ago and haven't been edited in the past 9 days.
The system will automatically delete unlocked, unanswered questions that have negative score after 30 days.
The system will automatically delete unlocked, unanswered questions with score of zero (or one if the owner is deleted), fewer than 1.5 views per day on average, and fewer than two comments after 365 days.

MattDMo

As far as the unanswered part is concerned, what drives me to vote to close is the possibility that some other usually low-rep person will try to answer it, regardless of how bad the question is, or whether or not the answer is up to our standards.

terdon

So, all we need to do is downvote and wait 30 days and the question is gone. Or, as soon as it has -1, we can vote to delete if we have >=10k rep

@MattDMo Yeah, that can be a problem. But then we should close with a different reason. Closing stuff that is clearly not homework as homework just confuses everybody.

MattDMo

13:16

@terdon right - hence the cleanup and potentially new close reason

terdon

Yep. My main issue is that we're using the word homework in a way that doesn't conform to its dictionary definition and is completely opaque to any but a very small set of active users.

MattDMo

At any rate, I for one would appreciate it if you visited (and answered) a bit more often. You have some great experience under your belt.

terdon

Closing questions is supposed to give guidance on how to improve them. We aren't. We're just giving a very vague "we don't want this here" message without even indicating what's wrong with it (since homework means something very different).

@MattDMo Yeah, I haven't been very active here of late. Between being a mod on 2 sites and a new(ish) job, I haven't been answering very much anywhere.

MattDMo

What's the other site you're a mod on? I know about U&L

and the infamous "pulling a terdon" trick :)

terdon

Ah, damn, you heard about that one? :P

It wasn't a trick! The poor sod asked for a malicious command and then went and executed it!

Anyway, I'm also a mod on Ask Ubuntu, elected this summer.

CowperKettle

14:16

I've just come across this:

> large-scale cell culture

Is it more "proper" to write "Large-scale cell culture in bioreactors" or is it better to write "Large-scale cell cultivation in bioreactors", I wonder.

Chris

17:25

@CowperKettle Since it essentially means the same thing, it doesn't matter in my opinion.

@terdon People should at least explain in the comments, this is right.

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