tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (accusation)

an_mo_user comments on "accusation" (14191)

an_mo_user — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 17:45:22 -0700

Also + 1 to Ryan Budney.

I cannot (yet) vote for anything, and only followed this particular question(s) from a distance.
But, from all I saw in the last month on this site, to almost immediately repost a closed question (with the same title), is simply asking for trouble.

I understand that in this case this reposting was done in good faith, but if sombody was just not very careful, it is completely clear that this can get a vote to close with reason 'spam'.

To the OP, I would thus not take this too personally.

Todd Trimble comments on "accusation" (14190)

Todd Trimble — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:13:45 -0700

+1 Ryan. I surmise that what you describe in your first sentence is exactly what happened.

Ryan Budney comments on "accusation" (14189)

Ryan Budney — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 13:44:47 -0700

I suspect what happened is that after you posted the 2nd question with the same title someone interpreted that as a way of forcefully disagreeing with the decision to close the question. Usually the process is to edit a closed question and try to get it re-opened, rather than re-posting essentially the same question to bypass the process of community moderation. I think people tend to use the "spam" close request when dealing with someone who is clearly violating the spirit of the forum.

Ben Webster comments on "accusation" (14188)

Ben Webster — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:48:59 -0700

Also, as we've discussed before, the word "spam" is one which people use a variety of different ways. By the strictest definition, labeling anything that was written as an individual message by a human as spam is wrong; on the other hand I think for some people, the term has expanded to include any message they think is appropriate.

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "accusation" (14187)

Qiaochu Yuan — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:41:56 -0700

+1 Ben.

Ben Webster comments on "accusation" (14186)

Ben Webster — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:38:55 -0700

I'm mostly reiterating what Scott said, but I think it bears repeating: MO is a community moderated website. There is no other functional mode of operation we know of. There are several consequences of this fact, one of which is that one does not get to demand explanations of votes to close from individual users. The moderators take responsibility for fixing decisions if they were made in serious error, and you can demand explanations from them about why they took an action or did not. The community as a whole also takes a certain kind of responsibility, and on numerous occasions, enough people have been persuaded by meta discussion to reopen a question. But with particular (anonymous) users, that's just not how it works. If someone can't accept that state of affairs, then I don't think MathOverflow is the right website for them.

Scott Morrison comments on "accusation" (14185)

Scott Morrison — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:23:12 -0700

@WilleWong,

Thanks, that must be what I was missing. Perhaps this suggests something we might want to fix in some imagined future where we can modify the software: prevent owners of a question seeing the breakdown of pending votes to close! It might avoid difficulties like this one.

Scott Morrison comments on "accusation" (14184)

Scott Morrison — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:21:52 -0700

@sergei,

in that case, MathOverflow is only for some discussions! :-)

sergei tropanets comments on "accusation" (14183)

sergei tropanets — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:11:03 -0700

Dear Scott,

I do not know how You understand the term "discussion". I often use this term to mean a precise answer to a precise question. "Let us discuss Herbrand's theorem" often means "Let us state and prove Herbrand's theorem".

WillieWong comments on "accusation" (14182)

WillieWong — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:07:28 -0700

@Scott: he probably clicked on the "close" button when there are several close votes pending, and thus got to see what the vote breakdown between various close reasons are.

Scott Morrison comments on "accusation" (14181)

Scott Morrison — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:04:26 -0700

@sergei,

I agree that explanation is needed.

I stand by my statement that meta is not the appropriate place to demand explanations of particular people.

Also, your statement

Such reformulations, to my view, are more accurate and may be discussed

is certainly true, but please remember that MathOverflow is not for discussion.

sergei tropanets comments on "accusation" (14180)

sergei tropanets — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:56:41 -0700

I agree that explanation is needed. That was certainly not a spam. My guess would be that it was done by some lazy-thinking mathematician who either do not understand the question (which is of course cannot be a reason) or understand it as a pure philosophical one which has nothing to do with mathematics. In the second case he indicates his unawareness of recent developments in formal logic which is (at least) to a large extent connected with mathematics. So, in any case this his action does not reveal him in good light. That is why I do not think he will tell us the reason. However, it may be quite possible that the action was caused by emotional reaction to one of Your general statements from the first version of the question. Here I advise You to be more accurate. Instead of saying

"We are teaching intelligent people to hate math. Once the canons of the logic of motivation are understood, it will be seen clearly that our present conventional curriculum is illogical."

You should say "According to my expirience, MOST of us are teaching... I am sure that once the canons of the logic of motivation...". Such reformulations, to my view, are more accurate and may be discussed. You may try to save the question (if You want to) by being more accurate in motivations and by being more informative about formalization (e. g. some instructive examples?) You are talking about.

Scott Morrison comments on "accusation" (14179)

Scott Morrison — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:56:31 -0700

Actually, I'm really confused. You say that someone voted to close this question as spam. I don't see this at all --- it's marked as closed as "not a real question".

Scott Morrison comments on "accusation" (14178)

Scott Morrison — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:55:06 -0700

Please remember:

most MathOverflow users aren't reading meta (this is a good thing!), and
people on the internet are wrong

I certainly agree that flagging as spam was inappropriate in this case; I'm less sure that flagging as spam should be interpreted as an accusation, so I don't actually think anyone is under any obligation. Much more importantly, however, I want to say that meta is an inappropriate forum for demanding explanations of particular (anonymous) people. See point 1) above.

I'm certainly happy to have a discussion here about improving the mechanisms by which we maintain consensus amongst the >3000 rep users on how voting to close should be done. I'm also happy to (via private email) entertain a request that the moderators ask whoever voted to close as spam to be more careful with their reasons.

Finally, remember that we don't have control over the available "reasons to close", and the current list is far from ideal for us, so there'll always be some inappropriate reasons.

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "accusation" (14177)

Qiaochu Yuan — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:51:08 -0700

I think you are taking the reasons to close far too seriously. There are only a finite number of them, and for many questions none of them are particularly good fits, so people make do with one that very roughly approximates their actual meaning.
I am fully willing to justify MO's preference for frivolous threads over "serious and substantial questions." The point of this preference is that the latter is much more likely than the former to fall under the "subjective and argumentative" category, and as has been said on meta too many times to count, this software is not optimized for having arguments. (On the other hand, it is not bad at collecting stories.) I disagree that this counts as an "emotional reason": it is a basic principle we have stuck to from the very beginning, and it is a principle you should be aware of by now. If you think your question does not fall under "subjective and argumentative," it's up to you to clarify the question until others agree with you (for example finding the original quote by Rota would be fantastic: at least one person does not believe that Rota said what you claim he said).

Michael Hardy comments on "accusation" (14176)

Michael Hardy — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:19:12 -0700

When someone votes to close a question on any of various grounds other than "spam", it probably does not imply that the question was not posted in good faith. But when someone votes to close a question as "spam", that is an accusation. That happened in this case:

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/62786/logic-of-motivation

I am owed an explanation for the accusation.

I had posted a longer version of the question which was closed for reasons for which Pete L. Clark attempted to give a partial explanation. So I reposted with the material he found objectionable deleted. That was closed as "not a real question", and in my view that was a clumsy mistake at best, but _one_ of those voting to close called it "spam". As far as I can tell, that was done anonymously. Whoever did that should identify himself and explain. He owes me that. He is my debtor.

Apparently there is at least one person---Pete L. Clark---who still believes that there are objective criteria by which a person contemplating a posting to mathoverflow can assess whether the topic will be judged appropriate or closed. The published criteria are not followed, and the actual practice is generally better than if the published criteria were followed. The practice appears to be that mathoverflow is for topics appropriate for discussion among mathematicians. Except that sometimes we have these mob events where one person expresses an objection to something and then a bunch of people leap in with downvotes because they feel they have to do a certain number of those. Some remarks that Harry Gindi posted here seem to corroborate that, and the actual behavior seems not explainable otherwise. (Harry Gindi said, among other things, that he used to be in the habit of downvoting without consciously being able to explain why he did so.) So completely frivolous threads like the one on mathematical urban legends (maybe the question is less than completely frivolous, but some of the well-regarded answers can't claim that) are popular, while serious and substantial questions like the one I link to above are closed for emotional reasons.

I am not unaware that what I write above contains some things with which reasonable people can disagree. Most of it is there only because if I don't put it there, then people may ask about it. But no reasonable person will say that those who make accusations have no obligation to explain.

Why was I accused of spam?