Timeline for close/reopen wars on Mathoverflow
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
27 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 3, 2018 at 1:21 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @Dima: Yeah, for example zbmath.org/?q=an:0589.03033 was definitely written long before MathOverflow existed. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 22:15 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @Dima: Ah. My bad. I suspect that this is an automated addition, once the review was linked in the main question. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 22:12 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | @AsafKaragila - I do see it right above Keywords. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 21:01 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @Dima: I'm confused by the zbmath link. I don't see any mention of MathOverflow, or any indication that the people who wrote that statement meant it as a statement about MathOverflow. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 14:08 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @DimaPasechnik: Yes, but this particular question is asking for inappropriate comments. As far as the link on zentrallblat, my guess is that it is an automatic trackback to MO questions that link to the particular review. Saying that it is a judgement by the editors of ZB that this is a valuable question is grasping at straws to justify a blatantly inappropriate post. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 13:03 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | Drive-by comments can be done to any question, not just to this one. I have never made any judgemental comments about any active mathematician, anyway. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 10:42 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | zbmath.org/?q=an%3A06856857 they think it is a valuable MO question... | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 3:58 | comment | added | Adam Epstein | @AndyPutman Agreed. As I commented below, this type of thing does indeed potentially open up liabilities, and this is yet another insidious effect of sustained charlatanism. While I entirely agree that MO is not the place to call out such behavior, my own experience leads me to wonder if there is any socially allowed forum, or if we are meant to tolerate (or even indulge) a certain amount of system-gaming for some higher purpose. | |
| Jul 1, 2018 at 19:30 | comment | added | Andy Putman | (ps: on re-reading my comment, it might appear that my concern is narrowly one about my colleague. But it is a far more general concern; who knows what drive-by comments will be made in the future...). | |
| Jul 1, 2018 at 17:20 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | Andy, thanks, I appreciate your point of view. | |
| Jul 1, 2018 at 16:04 | comment | added | Andy Putman | This kind of thing can be extremely damaging to someone’s career — MO questions are highly ranked on google, so the question will show up when someone’s name is googled. Given this danger, I cannot see any alternative to deleting this question. Slander, mean-spirited rumors and gossip, etc are completely inappropriate for MO. | |
| Jul 1, 2018 at 15:59 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @GilKalai: While I agree that in normal circumstances there is no need to delete closed questions, this is an exceptional case. Let me spell out my concerns more explicitly. One of my colleagues shares an unusual last name with a notorious crank (but is not related to him). Someone brought this up in the comments. Since people were actively paying attention, this was eventually deleted. But if the question is closed but not deleted, then inevitably in the future someone will leave a similarly slanderous comment, and no one will be paying attention enough to notice. (continued) | |
| Jul 1, 2018 at 14:16 | comment | added | Todd Trimble Mod | @GilKalai Thanks for clarifying your concern. Regarding your proposal: deletion and undeletion can see-saw just like opening and closing, and as Scott Carnahan said, site moderator intervention in that process would be seen as denial-of-voice, and I am leery of setting up a general rule like you suggest for that reason. Finally (for what interest it may have), here is an extract from Wikipedia on the use of the word 'charlatan': "Rather, the person called a charlatan is being accused of resorting to quackery, pseudoscience, or some knowingly employed bogus means of impressing people...". | |
| Jul 1, 2018 at 6:25 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | (continued) and to propose to moderators that, in the future, will usually not allow a close/reopening dispute to end with a deletion of the question. | |
| Jul 1, 2018 at 6:23 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | Dear Todd, I agree that the question is problematic (But leaving it closed and undeleted would be fine in my view.). Judging from the asnwers and the examples given in the question, I dont think it is about incompetency or charlatanism that somehow passed through the filter of peer review, but about examples of mathematically-based pseudoscience that had gained substantial attention, influence or support. I think it is useful to point out to people who voted to reopen that the question was not only closed but deleted, and to moderators... | |
| Jul 1, 2018 at 4:30 | comment | added | Todd Trimble Mod | @GilKalai Unfortunately my attention during the past few days was deflected by matters lying outside MO, but now having reviewed the matter some more, I find the question deeply problematic and do not find community-moderated deletion unreasonable. If I were to put the question in stark terms, it might be: what are some examples of outright incompetency or charlatanism that somehow passed through the filter of peer review? (It didn't appear to me that the author wanted examples of ordinary mistakes a mathematician might make.) It should be obvious why such a question is problematic. | |
| Jun 30, 2018 at 14:57 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | In my view, deleting the question is unreasonable. | |
| Jun 29, 2018 at 9:31 | comment | added | Michael Greinecker | @GerryMyerson I think it makes sense to have higher demands for the one asking the question to stick to the actual question- given they could have asked whatever they wanted. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 21:37 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | I'm amused that the comment I made here is meeting a very different reception than the exact same comment I made on Dima's answer, even though (to my way of thinking) the two comments were equally justified/unjustified. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 14:36 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @DimaPasechnik: See my previous comment to Gerry. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 14:36 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @GerryMyerson: I think you are being too rigid and literal with the rules. I agree that on the main site answers should generally strictly address the question at hand (though there are times when I infer from context other questions that the asker really wants to know and answer them); however, on meta the tradition is that discussions are more freewheeling. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 7:21 | comment | added | Dima Pasechnik | Would it be possible to split the question into two? Cause different answers answer different parts of the question. Dima "I just cannot stay on topic" Pasechnik. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 2:50 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | @Carl, sure, but to discuss what? To discuss whether there should be a limit to the number of open/close rounds? Sure. To discuss whether one specific question should be open/closed/deleted? That's a different issue, which could be discussed in response to a different question. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 2:09 | comment | added | Carl Mummert | @Gerry Myerson: unlike on the main site, I have always thought that the purpose of meta is often to discuss, rather than just answer a question. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 0:16 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @GerryMyerson: True, but most of the other answers also solely address the merits of this specific question, so this seems to me like the logical place to put this answer. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 23:46 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | The question before us is, "Should there be a limit to the number of such rounds?" This is not an answer to that question. | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 23:00 | history | answered | Andy Putman | CC BY-SA 4.0 |