Timeline for Do your own homework
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 30, 2013 at 22:47 | comment | added | user9072 | @StevenLandsburg I based my reply on your explication for who it is a service. But, for my opinion, all things considered I consider these expressions of disapproval as on the one hand pointless while on the other hand creating a hostile atmosphere. If somebody truly believes they have a relevant positive effect then I consider them as quite naive. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 20:51 | comment | added | Steven Landsburg | @quid: You seem to be assuming that an expression of disapproval does no good unless it is the key event that changes someone's behavior. This ignores the cumulative effect of multiple expressions of disapproval. The more often a would-be cheater encounters such an expression, the more likely s/he is to reconsider his/her behavior. Only one straw breaks the camel's back, but all of the other straws are necessary for it to do its job. Also, consider that an expression of disapproval directed at one student might be read by others, and so have a broader effect than you're imagining. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 14:18 | answer | added | Todd TrimbleMod | timeline score: 8 | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 10:04 | comment | added | user9072 | @StevenLandsburg of course. Only, for other memebers of MO we do not even have to guess so much, since everybody who wishes to can express their opinion here. And, so some did. It seems there is quite a lot of sentiment against commands and advices of this form, while you yourself admit that if ever it has a positive effect it will be rare. (You say a. should be rare, and personally I'd add an 'extremely', and if a. does not happen I repeat all the rest is moot.) Thus, it seems quite clear to me that the policy should be that such commands and advices are not done anymore. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 0:30 | comment | added | Steven Landsburg | @quid: Surely any policy we adopt is going to involve making guesses about what's good for at least some people other than ourselves (e.g. at a minimum, we'll have to guess about what's good for other members of MathOverflow). But these are educated guesses based on a lot of years teaching at several universities in several departments, and a lot of conversations with colleagues and students about how to control cheating, and why. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 22:21 | comment | added | user9072 | @StevenLandsburg thank you for the detailed reply. So if a) does typically not happen b) to e) are moot, but anyway. It is interesting how here you are quite confident about what might be good for all kinds of people, having no information about the precise circumstances whatsoever [while you are so worried about migrating things]. Maybe instead the fellow students might prefer to copy the homework from the one asking here, and we should thus give an answer? :-) | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 21:51 | comment | added | Steven Landsburg | quid: I think it is a service to a) the (possibly rare) student who might reconsider the possibility of doing his own homework, b) the instructor of said student, who might well have a strong preference that students do their own homework, c) the fellow students of said student, who might prefer to be judged on an equal playing field, d) the consumers of said student's transcript, who might prefer that the grades reflect individual effort a little more accurately, and e) the denizens of other question/answer sites, who might find these "do my homework" questions just as annoying as we do. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 21:42 | comment | added | user9072 | @StevenLandsburg you are doing a service in your opinion to who? (I read your comment multiple times but it is still not quite clear to me what exactly you mean.) | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 16:37 | answer | added | Gerhard Paseman | timeline score: -4 | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 11:44 | comment | added | user9072 | I changed the format. The old one, using MathJax, was too broad for the mobile version so it was cut-off. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 11:42 | history | edited | user9072 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
changed format
|
| Oct 29, 2013 at 11:40 | answer | added | user9072 | timeline score: 17 | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 9:44 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | @Kaveh, I see a difference between the advice, "you should do your own homework," and the command, "do your own homework." And when it should be clear that the question isn't homework, I think it will be received as rude, and I think it is rude. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 8:40 | comment | added | Kaveh | It seems that you are equating not being kind to the OP with rudeness. "you should do your own homework" might not be very nice but I don't think it is really rude. I think it is wrong to remove comments unless they are really rude. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 2:24 | comment | added | Benjamin Steinberg | (...) questions that mathematicians are a bit brutish, not to mention it can be put offish for those who are not asking homework but phrase their question in a HW-type way. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 2:23 | comment | added | Benjamin Steinberg | I think in fact that the current close as homework option is not a great idea. It arose from Mark Sapir's proposal to have a close as homework option which requires only 3 close votes and leads to immediate deletion. The second two parts of the proposal were not implemented. So as it currently stands the only difference between the close as HW and the close as not research level choices is in the level of aggressiveness. I am not convinced that the extra level of aggressiveness dissuades the kind of person who is going to ask HW questions but it can convince people doing contest-type (ctd...) | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 2:18 | comment | added | Steven Landsburg | It's true that expressing disapproval of a blatant homework question won't discourage future posters, who aren't reading those comments anyway. But it just might cause the current poster to think twice before posting elsewhere and to consider the option of, well, doing his or her own homework. And that, I think, is a service. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 0:04 | comment | added | Todd Trimble Mod | People have also been wrong in their assumptions about what is homework; this is a demonstrable truth. In any case, I don't think nastiness is justified even in the case of blatant HW questions. If you want to vent, feel free to do so in a comment attached to a flag that the moderators will read! | |
| Oct 28, 2013 at 23:05 | comment | added | Kim Morrison Mod | I think there's just no payoff to being rude about inappropriate questions. We might wish that it discourages later inappropriate questions, but the people asking them aren't reading the comments on earlier inappropriate questions anyway. If you feel like being rude about such a question, just leave the question for someone else to deal with --- there's no real shortage of users ready to close and delete. | |
| Oct 28, 2013 at 22:35 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | I think it is hard to tell with what intention a contest-type question is posted -- it may show interest in mathematics as you say, but it may also be an attempt to cheat in some competition, or whatever else. -- We can't read minds, in the end. | |
| Oct 28, 2013 at 22:27 | history | asked | Gerry Myerson | CC BY-SA 3.0 |