Timeline for The reason for putting on hold a question
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 18, 2019 at 17:32 | comment | added | Andy Sanders | @ToddTrimble Thank you very much for this clarification, and I agree that under the mantra "should be research level" the question we're discussing is likely too speculative and/or imprecise. I feel like generally most questions are closed because they either don't make any sense, or are obvious quackery, or are real questions, but obviously not research level. This question was a little bit different, in that I think it's an interesting question which could receive interesting answers (not mine), but I understand one must draw a line somewhere. | |
| May 18, 2019 at 0:01 | comment | added | Todd Trimble Mod | @AndySanders Something like that mantra used to be true in the early days of MO, but I think you're right it no longer holds water. The more frequently cited mantra these days is "questions should be research level". Now that can mean many things to many people, and the mantra can serve different purposes, some useful, some arguably harmful. But for speculative questions, I think it could mean that the poster should put in some hard thought into the question first. I think my main inner gripe about the original question is that it was lazy, requiring an answer to do a lot of work for the OP. | |
| May 16, 2019 at 16:02 | comment | added | Andy Sanders | This issue is reflected by something that I view as inevitable, but still unsettling, which is that the mathematical prestige of the poster can effect the perceived quality of the question, which I'm sure is a topic that's been beaten to death in here, though I don't frequent the meta, so I'm just ignorant. Anyway, my point is not that we should tighten the rules, and delete every question that has even a hint of speculation, but that letting a question that has some speculation survive might not totally destroy the community. Nonetheless, moderating is hard, and I'm not doing it... | |
| May 16, 2019 at 15:57 | comment | added | Andy Sanders | Since I was the only person who posted an answer to this question, which I'll fully admit was not an answer, but a step 0-attempt at clarification, I want to mention why I did this. At some point, I remember someone saying a suitable mathoverflow question is a question concerning mathematics which you'd be comfortable asking at a math tea in a mathematics department. This seems to be obviously false, but I don't want to start a war. More so, I'm curious if there is a forum where this mantra is taken seriously, and is actually frequented by mathematicians. | |
| May 14, 2019 at 9:14 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | @sch, 1) I've been here over nine years now, and there are still things I get wrong about how this place works, so I am sympathetic to your defense of innocent by reason of ignorance about MO. 2) I didn't call you a liar; the farthest I went was to suggest that your actions cast doubt on your sincerity, which I think is several steps short of calling you a liar. But I'm willing to retract that suggestion, as I view with favor the effort you have made to improve your question on main. | |
| May 14, 2019 at 8:10 | comment | added | user138661 | Granted, the situation here is not exactly analogous because I was in the wrong, lacking that information (not entirely trivial to infer from the rules of MO, I must say), but that is how situation looked to me before your comments. Please retract your statement about having doubts about me being sincere, call me something else if you wish. | |
| May 14, 2019 at 8:10 | comment | added | user138661 | To clarify: say, somebody comes to you and says "2+2=4 because 2+2=-4 and -4=4". You say "no, 2+2 is not -4". Does that mean you do not believe that 2+2=4? No, you just do not believe a particular way to demonstrate the truth of 2+2=4. Now, imagine you asked "why 2+2 equals 4?" on meta MO and somebody gave you the above argument and you had this conversation. Would you be insincere in that situation? | |
| May 14, 2019 at 7:59 | comment | added | user138661 | But I lacked that information at the time I was posting my comments and was genuinely not convinced (and genuinely agnostic about my question). You claim I am being a liar. I am not; ignorant about MO and not able to reason quickly, possibly, not a liar or an insincere person. | |
| May 14, 2019 at 7:58 | comment | added | user138661 | @GerryMyerson OK, I understand the part about the voters. Regarding the example with a student, it just can't be non-trivial to see where you are wrong. I mean, I personally was agnostic about whether my question was acceptable or not when I asked the question. S. Carnahan did provide some reasons, I thought that those reasons did not prove his claim completely (and pointed out possible counterexamples), that does not mean I believed his claim was wrong, just that I was not convinced. Then you come along and explain the stuff about voters, reasonable enough. | |
| May 14, 2019 at 7:52 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | By the way, of the four questions you cite, the most recent was asked in 2012, and was closed 2 hours after it was posted (and then reopened some hours later). | |
| May 14, 2019 at 7:46 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | [continued] that one species evolved into another. Incidentally, you can find out who the moderators have been at meta.mathoverflow.net/questions/753/history-of-mathoverflow | |
| May 14, 2019 at 7:46 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | @sch, if a student asks me what he did wrong on some problem, and I explain what he did wrong, and in reply he tries to tell me that what he did was right, then he wasn't sincere in asking me what he did wrong, because he didn't really believe he was wrong. On the other matter, identity of the moderators is irrelevant, as moderators rarely put questions on hold; that's left up to users who have accumulated enough points to acquire the privilege of voting to close. Different times, different voters. Things evolve over time. Asking for exact times is like asking for the exact time [continued] | |
| May 14, 2019 at 7:06 | comment | added | user138661 | @GerryMyerson regarding the second part: OK, that is so, but what is the exact period of time after which they fail to set a precedent? One of the questions was last edited in April 2017, that is slightly more than 2 years ago. I do not know who were the moderators back then, but probably some of the current moderators were around during that time too. I guess there should be a separate page on this site where they explain exactly the changes in exactly what is acceptable at each point of time, otherwise it is somewhat hard to guess. | |
| May 14, 2019 at 7:00 | comment | added | user138661 | @GerryMyerson I am not sure how does that call in question my sincerity. If a student says to you during a class "You have multiplied these matrices incorrectly", you explain to them what exactly you did, and then they say something like "But should not we be multiplying componentwise?", do you think they are being insincere? Stupid, possibly, probably not insincere. | |
| May 14, 2019 at 1:47 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | @sch, you're asking why the question was put on hold, you're being told why the question was put on hold, and you're coming back with "I can not agree with the decision to put in on hold." This reaction calls into question your sincerity in asking why it was put on hold. Also, it's a well-established principle here that reception of earlier questions doesn't set a binding precedent for newer ones. Membership changes, customs change. | |
| May 13, 2019 at 15:20 | comment | added | user138661 | I see that people are annoyed with my take on "Grothendieck's approach". If I edit that out, can the question live? | |
| May 13, 2019 at 15:19 | comment | added | user138661 | there were some other questions on MO which were imprecise to a similar extent, but were not put on hold. Would you say that they also did not do their homework and should be put on hold? mathoverflow.net/q/117668/138661 mathoverflow.net/q/25983/138661 mathoverflow.net/q/879/138661 mathoverflow.net/q/2358/138661 | |
| May 13, 2019 at 15:17 | comment | added | user138661 | "mathematical universe" is a system of axioms, I thought that was clear from the question ("universe" does have some other meaning in mathematics I believe, but I think it was clear from the context). I am not partial to arithmetic systems, that was an example. The question was asking for research on this topic, so I think it would not require much effort to recognize what is needed (thus to answer it). I would agree that this may be a bad question and I am ok with the down-votes, but I can not agree with the decision to put in on hold. | |
| May 13, 2019 at 14:51 | history | answered | S. CarnahanMod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |