Timeline for Welcoming new user: on a recent question about connections
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 6, 2021 at 15:07 | comment | added | Will Sawin | @FrancescoPolizzi Yes, given what a high percentage of people react in this way, blaming people for doing so is not really productive compared to adapting our language to account for it. | |
| Dec 6, 2021 at 6:42 | comment | added | Francesco Polizzi | This is a thorny issue, at the root of many of the discussions about "the unpleasantness of MO" that we had over the years. Many people react to criticisms about their questions as it was criticism about their person (I was insulted). But discussing if this is a social problem or not is outside the scope of MO. Our priority is discussing Mathematics in a calm environment, so, from a practical point of view, it is better (if possible) to avoid expressions like "does not belong", "it is not appropriate" and so on, and use equivalent formulations less likely to hurt people susceptibility. | |
| Dec 6, 2021 at 2:08 | comment | added | LSpice | That is to say, I believe that any comments—which perhaps have been made here in MMO, but I believe did not appear on MO—to the effect that a user doesn't belong on MO are very much untoward; but I think that one can suggest that a particular question doesn't belong on MO without saying anything about the user, and much of the upset that followed seemed to come from conflating these two sentiments. (Again, I pass no judgement on whether the question was appropriate; I am not a geometer.) | |
| Dec 6, 2021 at 2:03 | comment | added | LSpice | I was confused by the strength of the questioner's response, which indicated they seemed to feel told that they were not capable of, or did not perform, research in mathematics, rather than commenting on just one of their questions (whether or not the comment was founded). I am a tenured professor of mathematics, but that doesn't mean that every mathematics question I ask is research level. For example, in retrospect I find Traces and projectors a low-level question that didn't belong here; if someone had told me so, then I wouldn't have minded. | |
| Dec 3, 2021 at 22:47 | comment | added | Francesco Polizzi | If migration to MSE is the right option, I would avoid completely the expression "not appropriate for MO" (that might appear exclusionary, especially to new users) and instead say "possibly more appropriate for MSE". | |
| Dec 3, 2021 at 19:52 | comment | added | Sam Hopkins | Maybe a rough rule of thumb is: it's okay to say "this question is not appropriate for MO" (or the same sentiment but more bluntly) to a question that is obviously at undergraduate level; but not to a question that is at graduate level. | |
| Dec 3, 2021 at 19:45 | history | answered | Will Sawin | CC BY-SA 4.0 |