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Today, https://mathoverflow.net/questions/28487/is-there-a-concept-equivalent-to-factorial-that-uses-addition-rather-than-multip was on the front page. I was about to flag the question, only to realise that the question was already closed and three years old.

I think it was due to an edit adding a tag. I do not see any reason why the tag should be added, and bumping these questions seems like a bad use of the site. Maybe I am wrong, and there is a good reason why the question should be retagged. Anyway, I thought it was good to have a short discussion on this.

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    $\begingroup$ The revision histories show precisely why a thread was bumped. In this case it was due to updating a broken link in an answer (see meta.mathoverflow.net/questions/1099/… for context) not for tagging. [Fixing of tags was also done but only because the question was on top anyway.] Whether one should fix the link in this thread might still be debatable but as it is part of fixing some general problem it seems alright. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Commented Oct 28, 2013 at 12:18
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    $\begingroup$ I think that question can be safely deleted. Anyone against? $\endgroup$
    – S. Carnahan Mod
    Commented Oct 28, 2013 at 13:39
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    $\begingroup$ @S.Carnahan I have nothing against it. It has a surprisingly large number of views though (15k). Maybe this hints at some significance of it to someone/somewhere. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Commented Oct 28, 2013 at 13:55
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    $\begingroup$ It is the top Google hit (on my computer) for the terms "factorial" and "addition". The next hit is an xkcd forum that covers the exact same topic, so I think our version of the discussion is redundant. $\endgroup$
    – S. Carnahan Mod
    Commented Oct 28, 2013 at 14:06
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    $\begingroup$ @quid: I was a bit too quick. I only looked at the edit history of the question, not of the answers. I wouldn't have posted otherwise. $\endgroup$
    – Thomas Rot
    Commented Oct 28, 2013 at 15:02
  • $\begingroup$ A related recent post: Restriction on editing closed questions. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Jul 31, 2018 at 7:20

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