Timeline for How to make welcoming comments on "homework-like" posts that will be closed?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
31 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 24, 2022 at 20:00 | answer | added | LSpice | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 4, 2022 at 3:48 | comment | added | David Roberts Mod | @Gerry I usually say "original maths research", to emphasise its not just learning stuff or figuring out details, and also explicitly say up front this means at or above PhD level. | |
| Jan 4, 2022 at 1:35 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | My latest failed effort to be kind to an off-topic poster: mathoverflow.net/questions/412529/… | |
| Jan 3, 2022 at 23:24 | answer | added | Federico Poloni | timeline score: 5 | |
| Dec 29, 2021 at 4:23 | history | became hot meta post | |||
| Dec 29, 2021 at 3:48 | comment | added | David Roberts Mod | There was a recent case where the OP claimed the question wasn't homework, but it was clearly an exercise out of a textbook. Someone who is being proactive and working through exercises off their own back should be commended, but gently pointed to a more appropriate place. | |
| Dec 29, 2021 at 2:20 | comment | added | JRN | Related: meta.mathoverflow.net/q/1107/12357 | |
| Dec 29, 2021 at 2:01 | vote | accept | LSpice | ||
| Dec 29, 2021 at 2:00 | answer | added | Gerry Myerson | timeline score: 10 | |
| Dec 29, 2021 at 1:57 | comment | added | LSpice | @MartinSleziak, thanks! @HarryGindi's question What do we mean by welcoming when we're a site aimed at researchers? is very close indeed. | |
| Dec 29, 2021 at 1:54 | comment | added | LSpice | Thanks, @GerryMyerson! I like that. Would you consider posting it as an answer? | |
| Dec 28, 2021 at 23:42 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | OK, how about this: "This site is dedicated to questions of math research. I'm not sure there is a research angle to your question. If there is, please edit something about that angle into your question"? | |
| Dec 28, 2021 at 23:39 | comment | added | LSpice | @FrancescoPolizzi, thanks! Sometimes people also bridle at the suggestion that their question is homework (it's hard to tell how sincerely)—for example, I seem to remember that the user who asked the question in, well, question, said that it was not homework. I find it hard to be value neutral in a way that doesn't reference research level and doesn't reference homework …. | |
| Dec 28, 2021 at 23:35 | comment | added | LSpice | @GerryMyerson, thanks! Unfortunately we have seen that people can also take the (implicit) claim that their question is not research level as a slap in the face …. | |
| Dec 28, 2021 at 17:46 | comment | added | Carlo Beenakker | I do tend to refer to homework when it is obvious that the question was copied and pasted from a problem set written by an instructor (sometimes even listing the credit points). | |
| Dec 28, 2021 at 14:36 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | I think it's better to write something like, "You have reached a website intended for questions of math research," rather than "MO is not for homework." The latter might read like a slap in the face to the person posting the question, and, anyway, it presumes facts not in evidence. | |
| Dec 28, 2021 at 12:43 | comment | added | Francesco Polizzi | I suggest something like "Your question seems like a homework problem and, if this is the case, it would be off-topic here. Please have a look at the help center for more details" with a link to the help center. In fact, many people seem to take criticism about their questions very personally and to get angry about it, so it is better to use neutral language, avoiding expressions like "not research-level", "not appropriate", "low-quality" or similar ones. | |
| Dec 28, 2021 at 9:08 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | There are some older discussions related to being welcoming to new users - although they weren't focused specifically on homework questions: What do we mean by welcoming when we're a site aimed at researchers?, Should we exercise a bit more tolerance towards newcomers?, "Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming." --- are we? (Those discussions might be somewhat related to @MattF.'s comment.) | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 23:26 | comment | added | LSpice | @StefanKohl, thanks. So maybe "inappropriate" is too strong a word, but I still wonder whether there is some routine comment I can make that is useful for the user, or whether all such comments would be so low-content that it would be better if I do not make them. | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 22:17 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | @LSpice Comments can also be deleted independent of flags which are found to be helpful. -- In fact, most comments which are deleted are deleted because they are not needed any more, or because they don't provide much information, or because they are speculative or too chatty or for similar reasons. Inappropriate comments are fortunately comparatively rare. | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 21:19 | comment | added | user44143 | Perhaps the questionable premise is that we should be welcoming when people are looking for answers to homework problems. | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 21:04 | comment | added | LSpice | @StefanKohl, thanks! So the comment was flagged (which I can understand—I am not objecting, just trying to do better), the flag was declined, and yet the comment was still deleted? Since I didn't delete it, what other activity could trigger the deletion? | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 21:03 | comment | added | LSpice | @MartinSleziak, thanks! Not that you said it did, but that doesn't seem quite to answer the question, since I am wondering specifically about questions not appropriate in their current form for MSE. I guess I could start with tweaking those templates. (EDIT: Ah, perhaps your answer fits even my situation.) | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 19:23 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | From the timeline, I see that your comment got an "unfriendly or unkind" flag which was declined, and in the same time the comment was deleted. | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 19:21 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | I will add a reminder of this thread from 2013: Comment template for questions more appropriate for MSE. | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 18:55 | comment | added | LSpice | @MartinSleziak, sure, I think it is possible to seek out information about what has gone wrong, but my impression is that requires a pro-active step by the user, rather than the information being in a sense "in their face". Are you saying that it is better not to leave a comment? | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 18:41 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | Re: with no indication to the user of what has gone wrong. The OP should be able to see the banner with the close reason. (The one marked as: "Viewable by the post author and users with the close/reopen votes privilege".) Often it contains link to some part of help center which has more information. | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 18:39 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | CW works on meta exactly the same way as on the main site. For answers, any user can mark their own post as CW. For questions, this can be only done by mods, see also here: Community Wiki in the hands of moderators. (Having said that, I am not really sure this post has to be CW.) | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 15:40 | comment | added | LSpice | Since this question probably has no single 'right' answer, maybe it should be Community Wiki. Does that exist here on Meta? | |
| Dec 27, 2021 at 15:34 | history | edited | LSpice | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
More detail in introductory paragraph
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| Dec 27, 2021 at 15:28 | history | asked | LSpice | CC BY-SA 4.0 |