@amWhy @AlexFrancisco @AlexanderGruber @AndrésE.Caicedo @Did @XanderHenderson @user21820 @JyrkiLahtonen @paulplusx or anyone else who asked why I left. Here is a chat transcript that might offer some explanations. I made the right decision to leave, I am glad I left. I am sorry to pollute CRUDE with this nonsense but this kind of stuff is absolutely absurd. chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46998857#46998857
@ZacharySelk OMG. If I still had my diamond powers, my finger would be twitching on a button locking MH's account and throwing the key away. That is beyond, well, anything I've seen on this site. Very sorry to hear about this.
PSQ by high rep user, I posted a comment to show the work he said he tried to do, I'll wait before vote. Please wait/vote as you like
@ZacharySelk I'm relatively new in the chats/site so I don't know the full story, but what happened here seems to me way over the top from MH side, and I'm wishing you good luck!
@Holo Under certain conditions (based on your answer's score and the age of the question/answer) you keep the rep even if the question is deleted. I don't remember the details but I think this was discussed recently.
@AlexFrancisco Even more, I don't get how it earned 7 upvotes? And people seem only to want to question and complain about downvotes on posts like that, not the upvotes??
@quid @AlexanderGruber: I think it is ridiculous to allow this no-context no-effort question to keep getting undeleted. It is not even of historical interest...
@user21820 It's not "ridiculous". Rather, it simply means that others don't have the same views as you do on how to best use the site. The site would work much better if folks strived to compromise rather than to force their views on the entire site.
@BillDubuque You're wrong. It simply means that others don't bother to follow the site guidelines. The site would work much better if folks strove (not "strived") to actually follow the rules (such as no sockpuppet voting) rather than to subvert the site.
How can I be sure I'm looking at a sockpuppet?
You can't ever be 100% sure. What you think is a sockpuppet could in fact be my good friend Nog Shine, who loves everything I write, copies my writing style, and uses my computer to vote and post stuff when I step away for coffee.
But in practice, ...
Anyway, I was pinging the moderators, and do not wish to continue the discussion with you that started from the meaning of "ridiculous" in my message to them. Thanks.
@user21820 @ I have no idea what you are talking about, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. In any case, my point was a little bit of compromise can go a long way towards reducing the problems that CRUDE is causing .
@user21820 c1 is pretty clearly a homework problem, no effort, and a PSQ. c3 is the same, if you don't view "divide both sides of the equation by 8" as effort.
@CarlMummert I don't consider them good questions, but c1 has minimal effort (the asker wrote out two equations to start) and c3 also does (the asker simplified the given equation and claimed he didn't know where to go next). Of course, I'm not against closing them either, just pointing out that PSQs are usually much worse (just a problem dump, or even "give me full solution urgent!!!").
@user21820: personally, I don't usually weight the effort very highly- I am much more interested in context than various kinds of effort, especially when the effort seems to be included only to formally satisfy the request to show some work. IMO we should not be too quick to ask 'show your work' - instead 'why is this question interesting' or 'where exactly did you encounter this question'
@CarlMummert Yup agreed. I consider a good mathematical motivation (when explicitly stated) as providing sufficient context. But in the absence of that (such as homework problems) the downvote button already says it all; "this question does not show any research effort".
@user21820 evidently some find its mathematical content sufficiently interesting to be its own context. I don't really have an opinion on that particular question.
@AlexanderGruber Just remember that decision when one or two rep hunters, or their defenders, flag a moderator to address honest comments provided by "community" members, okay?
@AlexanderGruber There's no bringing up of a meta issue, @AlexanderGruber, it's a day in, day out, multiplicity of at least a hundred, identifying one example from a multiplicity of hundreds such "PSQ/ rep-hunter symbioses" we see per day." We could, of course, post every day, complaints of every such question on meta, to perhaps drown-out the whiners who lose 20 points because a PSQ they answered was deleted. Would that please you and the moderators?
That actually might be a very good idea, because one could be entirely misled about a significant, rarely mentioned on meta, portion of "do it for me", and associated "do it for you" obligers. Then, instead of those trying to maintain some semblance of quality on this site will not be named so frequently, while the "anonymous until they lose points rep-hunters" will become well known across the site.
@AlexanderGruber Oh, but we need a separate post on meta for each PSQ with obliging answers from obliging answerers; symmetry. We don't see single questions about closed or deleted posts often; we are rather, more frequently, flooded by individual "Why was this (the post I asked, or the post I answered) closed/deleted." Time for some symmetry.
I noticed the HNQ question that @TheSimpliFire suggested to be closed (it is closed now). I found a question showing similarly little effort, but it is nearly 6 years old. Do old questions like that still get closed? Here is the link: math.stackexchange.com/questions/319188/…
My point is this: Those working hard to maintain consistency in policy, and in quality on this site are routinely villainized on meta, by users complaining about a single question closure or answer deletion, or a deleted question (with upvotes usually, answered by the complainer. The representation of frustration on meta has been asymmetrical. Perhaps it is time for a meta "tit-for-tat". This site would be better informed if those blamed for being "too heavy handed" would daily, regularly,
... post complaints about specific examples of the poorest of the poor question that day, to show examples of the meta poster objects to, and complaining about any upvotes it received, about the users who "answered the question". Others in the community can then judge for themselves the merits of the question and answer(s): Let's be honest: show both sides of the coin, and stop pretending that thosewho care about this site surviving the perpetual villains. That's a cop out.
Well, by my suggestion, i mean that i think it would be more contructive to try and hammer out some conensus from the community on what the bounds and terms would be to regulating rep hunting / PSQ answer sniping.
If you haven't noticed, there are four or five very vocal users who slam any attempt from users who care about the quality of this site who propose a compromise in which there is the slightest chance that some users may not be able to blindly seek rep, no matter the quality of a question. That's been my experience, anyway.
@AlexanderGruber Did you just read "who care about the quality of this site who propose a compromise being slammed, belittled, being called names... belittled regularly in chats, on meta, on site and off site, " What of that did you not hear in what I said (err wrote)?
So i think that would be best expressed somewhere that voting could show the difference. If there is a "should we banhammer rep hunters" question with 200 upvotes and 5 downvotes on a "yes" answer, that would be very... enabling for the mods
(Whether or not the 5 downvoters were vocal in the comments)
Of course the political challenge there is figuring out what the precise terms and definitions would be so that the community could agree on this rule. That would be up to the proposer to figure out.
@AlexanderGruber Okay, I get what you are saying. But I don't think that moderators fully realize the stress and intimidation of a handful of users, who label a user as "dishonest", a "witch hunter," etc, for example, because the labeled user disagrees with what they "KNOW" is the TRUTH? I'm talking about very vocal and intimidating users on this site, who have built their career here largely based on intimidating other users, and being dishonest themselves.
@AlexanderGruber It's a stellar answer. Precise, and succinct. If anyone can claim a full answer which is succinct, it is the answerer who provided the answer "W"
