Timeline for Is it a problem if I post a lot of questions?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
27 events
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| Mar 5, 2014 at 22:58 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @StefanKohl: Astronomy analogy: it's by focusing a telescope on the area of the sky where there is the less light, that you can obtain the most deep informations about the birth of the Universe. In the same way, less a question is (apparently) connected to current subjects, more an answer could be a deep advance, but of course, more the answer could be hard to find (we need a huge mathematical telescope). The Collatz conjecture could be an example, 30 years ago. | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 22:45 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @StefanKohl: I'm agree again. Your example is funny. | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 21:36 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | @SébastienPalcoux: No, I don't think so. -- I think a "good" question is one which an expert in the respective field finds interesting. -- There are lots and lots of questions nobody has a clue how to solve, but from whose solutions one cannot expect to learn anything interesting (stupid example: "Is the number of prime factors of $10^{10^{100}}+1$ odd or even?"). In mathematics (and in sciences in general), the art of asking a good question is not to find a hard question, but to find one whose answer gives interesting new insights. | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 20:10 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @StefanKohl: Of course you're right. Do you think that a question that an expert understand well and can't answer (easily), is surely a "good" question ? | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 18:18 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | @SébastienPalcoux: The difference is that an answer which an expert can easily give may still be very valuable for the person who has asked the question. | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 15:35 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @YemonChoi: "asking questions is cheap. Finding good questions is non-trivial" I'm agree. I've found an interesting dual statement: answering questions you already know the answer (or you can easily find because you're an expert) is cheap, else think about it is non-trivial. | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 13:34 | comment | added | Gerald Edgar | Asking a lot of questions is not a problem. But: ask one at a time. Wait a few days before asking the next one. | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 13:22 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @S.Carnahan: Nice conversations! I would be interesting by a development. Do you think this culture of shame exists outside of Japanese mathematicians, in all the mathematics community (and, in some sense, a little bit in the MO community)? About the word "Omertà", in French it is not so extremal, it has passed into everyday speech (it's used for example in many political debates). | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 12:55 | comment | added | S. Carnahan Mod | I think your use of "Omertà" is a very poor choice of metaphor. There are no police, no criminals, and no dead informants here. If you feel compelled to use colorful language, you may want to consider describing a culture of shame instead of external intimidation. For example, I have had conversations at work about the scarcity of questions from Japanese mathematicians here. | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 11:05 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @TobiasKildetoft: I'm sorry if my tone sounds like that. I don't want to accuse anybody, neither those with much more answers than questions, nor with much more questions than answers, nor anything else. I would just denounce an Omertà through which people retain themselves to post too many questions for not appearing as "suspect", and in this case, the motivation would be more the fear than the selfishness. Anyway, I'm reassured by the answer and some of the comments. | |
| Mar 5, 2014 at 8:26 | comment | added | Tobias Kildetoft | The reason for the downvote seemed fairly clear to me when I read the question (though I can only speculate of course). The tone, both in the question and in the comments of the OP is very accusing towards those who answer much more than they ask, and implies that these people are motivated by selfish reasons. | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 22:52 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @AndyPutman: I'm agree with the extra work aspect. For the other aspect, instead of sending a link to the post, you could just copy and past the content of the post by email and then write yourself his answer on MO (if he allow)... but you're right it's a lot of extra work... | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 22:03 | comment | added | Andy Putman | That sounds like a lot of extra work. Also, I suspect that most of the people I correspond with who don't already use MO know about it and are not interested in it for one reason or another. I see no reason to try to pressure them to use it. I have fun answering questions here, but not everyone does... | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 21:36 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @AndyPutman: interesting, of course you're free to do as you like, nevertheless your questions (and the answer coming from your network) could interest the MO community. In my case, when I have research level question, I write it on MO, and sometimes when I know a good person to ask, I send to him a link to the post by email, and if he answers me and he is not a (regular) MO user, I report his answer as CW. | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 20:52 | comment | added | Andy Putman | I don't see why you are so concerned about how many questions other users post. I have to say that your "opinion" about the reason many high-rep users rarely post questions is simply wrong, at least in my case. For the most part, when I have a question these days I have a pretty good idea of who would be a good person to ask and I just ask them directly. This works because I have a fairly broad network of colleagues and collaborators; there is rarely a reason to resort to MO. But I enjoy answering questions here. | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 20:25 | history | edited | Sebastien Palcoux | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
I've removed a pride statement.
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| Mar 4, 2014 at 19:50 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @YemonChoi: First, I don't think that all my questions are "good", but I think some of them are. Next, there are not only "good" questions on one side and "bad" questions on the other side, but a continuity between "good" and "bad". I think many users retain themselves to ask too much questions, because of the Omertà I talked about. Finally, I don't think there is a correlation between the fact of being "well-written" and being "good" for a question: sometimes a vague/confused question becomes very good, the transformation is an effort, but both are useful (the asker and the improver). | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 19:06 | comment | added | user9072 | I deleted it because on rereading it it felt too cryptic. but here it is again (except minimal variation) "A very general point to consider is whether one thinks of MO as a tool to an end or an end in itself." By which I mean that if one holds the former opinion, while certainly the site could not work if nobody wanted to ask question, it should also be recognized that then it would also be somewhat pointless to have it in the first place. So, if ever we run out of questions, so what, let's call it a day and do something else. (Of course I know this is an oversimplification.) | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 18:57 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @quid: why did you remove your first comment ?, it was relevant for me. Anyway, about your last comment, I count $48186$ questions, whose $9380$ are unanswered. I don't know the number of answers, but it seems there are on average 2 answers by questions. So the "mid career" ratio could be on average $1/2$ instead of $1$, so that "early career" users should be far from 1/10 or 1/100. Then, as you said, we need others explanations for a complete understanding of the phenomenon. What do you think about this Omertà, as I try to explain in the post and in comments of Stefan's answer. | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 18:42 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | "The ability of giving "good" answers seems much more recognized than of asking "good" questions." Who says they are good questions? As I have commented before on meta, asking questions is cheap. Finding good questions is non-trivial. Moreover, sufficiently vague/confused questions require much more effort to make sense of than they do to ask. So I am not at all convinced that those who ask more questions than they give answers are under-rewarded on MO | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 18:27 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @WillieWong: about your link I read: << On posts tagged feature-request, voting indicates agreement or disagreement with the proposed change rather than just the quality or usefulness of the post itself >>. But my post is not tagged feature-request so an up or downvote is not about the fact of being agree or not agree with my statements. What I require is a discussion, then a downvote should mean that the user thinks it's useless to discuss about these subjects... I think it is very useful, that's why I've posted this question. | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 16:47 | comment | added | user9072 | One thing to consider is also that there are simply more answers than questions. Sure, this does not at all fully acount for this effect, but still it is a non-negligible effect. | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 16:41 | answer | added | Stefan KohlMod | timeline score: 14 | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 16:38 | comment | added | Sebastien Palcoux | @WillieWong: you're right, I don't understand what does it mean, so it's a bit useless. Now it's a discussion, so what're the main statements for you, and what do you think about (if you're able to discuss)? | |
| Mar 4, 2014 at 16:27 | history | edited | Sebastien Palcoux | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Minor edit
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| Mar 4, 2014 at 15:47 | history | edited | Sebastien Palcoux | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Minor edit
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| Mar 4, 2014 at 14:55 | history | asked | Sebastien Palcoux | CC BY-SA 3.0 |