tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (A suggestion for inappropriate questions)

Will Jagy comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10724)

Will Jagy — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 10:10:54 -0800

Thanks, Qiaochu. But I need to know I've missed something to ask. One aspect of the subscription service is that they say: You might have thought "_______" was ordinary English, but in fact it is a sly reference to "___", what was at one time called an in-joke....

Just to show off,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vark

Sometimes gold is used.

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10722)

Qiaochu Yuan — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:49:10 -0800

@Will: you could try asking on vark.

Andrew Stacey comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10720)

Andrew Stacey — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:36:58 -0800

There could be another niche service for explaining stuff that appears on one's computer, you supply them with all public sites you might view, every twelve hours you get a report by a twenty year old on what it meant.

Where do I sign up?

Will Jagy comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10717)

Will Jagy — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:33:39 -0800

Thanks, Cam. I was actually considering answering myself, pasting in my canned mild comment for innapropriate questions and pointing out that so far there has been no evidence of gratitude, only outrage. But I see the post really was emphasizing the possibility of relocating questions, last night I got the wrong emphasis.

There is a small but steady market for cell phones that are only telephones and do nothing else, they just have jumbo numbers to press to dial in new numbers, probably a few numbers on speed dial and that's it. There could be another niche service for explaining stuff that appears on one's computer, you supply them with all public sites you might view, every twelve hours you get a report by a twenty year old on what it meant. Premium service includes explanation of emails you select.

Cam McLeman comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10714)

Cam McLeman — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:15:13 -0800

@Will: A reference to simultaneous posting with Anton. (Anton "snuck in" and answered first, by a very small margin.)

Will Jagy comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10713)

Will Jagy — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:11:42 -0800

I think we've hit another instance where I am too old to understand a colloquial usage but there is no real secret. Does ninja'd mean that the original post in this thread was an amusing fake by someone you know?

Scott Morrison comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10685)

Scott Morrison — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:05:40 -0800

ninja'd!

Scott Morrison comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10684)

Scott Morrison — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:05:14 -0800

I think it's pretty standard now that someone will post to a link to math.SE, if appropriate, when closing a question. We can't actually "migrate" the question, so it still has to be closed.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10683)

Anton Geraschenko — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:04:33 -0800

We don't actually have the ability to move the question to another forum, so it's still important to close questions that really don't belong on MO. We've been directing people to other math forums ever since MO started; see http://mathoverflow.net/faq#homework. Is there something more to this suggestion that I'm missing?

hyh1048576 comments on "A suggestion for inappropriate questions" (10682)

hyh1048576 — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 21:46:24 -0800

Now that there are meta and math"underflow", when somebody asked a bad question (e.g. How to do this integral by parts), can we, instead of closing it, forward it to the place where we think it is proper? The one who asked such a question would also be happier for finding the right place to discuss!