tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed ("Spam Deflection")

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8149)

2010-08-06T06:33:02-07:00

@Yemon: Have you ever been a member of another virtual mathematical community that has died? If so then perhaps you might be more sympathetic to some of the issues that I raise. Bootstrapping the community is always the easy part because usually the founding members already share common values and strong communication channels from their prior interactions. However, as the community grows and develops much more diversity then one immediately confronts many of the issues that I raised. Whether or not the community succeeds in the long run usually depends heavily on how such issues are addressed. At least that's my experience after having been involved in many such forums over a few decades.

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8140)

2010-08-06T03:44:10-07:00

Incidentally, that came to mind when I was reading the third post, but I, for some reason, thought of the holy hand grenade scene.

José Figueroa comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8139)

2010-08-06T03:33:36-07:00

Harry: it's from Monty Python and Holy Grail. The obligatory youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o76WQzVJ434

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8134)

2010-08-06T02:55:45-07:00

@Yemon: I don't get the reference.

Yemon Choi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8130)

2010-08-05T23:58:29-07:00

This "Secret Blogging Old Boys Network", which I have seen mentioned above, does not seem to have overly affected the penetrating responses and wisdom given by the likes of W. B. ("Bill") Johnson, nor the interesting viewpoints evangelized by Dmitri Pavlov, nor the diligent industry of Jonas Meyer, nor the astute analyses provided by users such as Greg Kuperberg or Brian Conrad or Fedja (Nazarov?).... But perhaps these facets of MO are not being counted for sampling purposes when we come to foundations for rhetoric.

Yemon Choi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8129)

2010-08-05T23:50:01-07:00

NOW WE SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM

Yemon Choi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8128)

2010-08-05T23:49:11-07:00

My interpretation of "close as spam" is that the author is more interested in asking new questions than digesting answers/response to their existing ones. When one writes a referee report for an article, pointing out a false or facile statement, and then later receives a request from another journal to referee the same article where the statement has been left unchanged, one is tempted to conclude that the author simply doesn't care about content, merely about communicating their excitement or fervid enquiry. In the particular case of the coset question, I was swayed by my reading of an earlier (non-)question raised imprecisely and cavalierly by the same user.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8122)

2010-08-05T20:52:29-07:00

@Jose: I don't buy that argument. There are likewise plenty of existing comments on MO that we certainly wouldn't want people to think are condoned here. It should come as no surprise that perhaps a few disgruntled SO people - perhaps those adversely affected by those very policies - might feel the need to grumble in the Q&A FAQ thread on the policy. I don't see any correlation between that and the value of said policy.

VP comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8120)

2010-08-05T20:35:06-07:00

A somewhat belated comment on the best target for redirecting spam:

spam >/dev/null

José Figueroa comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8119)

2010-08-05T20:29:20-07:00

Bill: The existence of those remarks means that such discourse is condoned in the site. I would imagine that this is a direct consequence of the site's policies. After all, what are policies for, if not to determine the sort of interaction one wants in the forum? That being the case, and since I would not like to see such discourse in MO, I do not think that those policies are to be emulated here. That's all I meant.

sean tilson comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8117)

2010-08-05T20:13:57-07:00

This has gotten way off topic. It seems that there seems to be a good solution to this. For the particular question mentioned in the first post of this thread, it seems that suggesting the rework the question and post at MSE might be the best solution seeing as it is =not an unreasonable question just not the right level (this is solution should take into account Who is posting the question). a happy marriage of AStacey and Kbuzzards solutions (as well as others i have forgotten).

Please note that i did not mark the question as spam, and usually do not flag things as such.

Perhaps we should close this thread unless there is still something on point to discuss. This question was specifically about redirecting questions to more appropriate places.

@Bill: I am sorry that i used the word spam that has clearly gotten you thinking about this other issue. APutnam is right here, this is not the appropriate thread. Although, to have a consensus on how to use the flags is a good idea.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8116)

2010-08-05T20:12:48-07:00

@Jose. I don't follow you. How are those remarks relevant to the matter at hand? Are you surprised that some SO users might make random comments to an SO FAQ question on policies? Is that supposed to imply that said policies are bad?

José Figueroa comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8109)

2010-08-05T19:39:03-07:00

Bill: Can you honestly tell me you see nothing inappropriate (for a site such as what we are trying to build here) in, for instance, the following exchange?

CW before I downvote, will ya? – Ladybug Killer Jul 22 at 14:20

@LadybugKiller: sorry, i thought i had checked it – Kip Jul 22 at 14:23

@Lady: while you are free to downvote for any reason you want (even no reason), I think downvoting because it's not CW is unfair. There are LOT of FAQ questions that are not CW including one by Jeff Atwood (that gave him 850 rep) – Kop Jul 22 at 14:23

@Kop: We all know that Jeff is a cheater. I don't care about fairness, I downvote at will. Besides that I haven't downvoted. So stay cool. – Ladybug Killer Jul 22 at 14:26

meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/58034/… – Kop Jul 22 at 14:28

@Kop @Kip: stop trying to destroy my brain, will you? – Popular Demand Jul 22 at 17:45

@Pip: Is there something left to destroy? – Ladybug Killer Jul 22 at 17:48

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8108)

2010-08-05T19:20:42-07:00

@François: I have not yet seen any official reply as to what the MO policy is, have you? I think it is rather naive to presume that we are better behaved than SO so that we needn't worry about such issues. These and related issues have ultimately led to the demise of every other math forum I've known. I spoke up only because I don't want to see MO make the same mistakes.

François G. Dorais comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8106)

2010-08-05T19:14:34-07:00

Bill, the SO policies do not necessarily apply to MO. This does not mean that the SO policies are bad, but that MO deals with a very different community. The MO policy standard is to keep the rules and guidelines short and simple. Since there have been too few incidents of abuse of the spam/offensive flags (one of which is you were the unfortunate victim) we have not yet felt the need for official guidelines on their use.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8103)

2010-08-05T19:00:22-07:00

@Jose: The links I gave are the actual links from the SO FAQ on such matters. What is the "nature of the banter" that you refer to and how does that relate to the issue at hand?

José Figueroa comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8100)

2010-08-05T18:55:33-07:00

I would have to agree with Harry on this. In fact, the nature of the banter in some of the comments associated to the meta.stackoverflow questions which Bill Dubuque linked to in his first contribution to this discussion is precisely the sort of thing we are trying hard to keep away from MO.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8099)

2010-08-05T18:55:05-07:00

@Harry: Please keep in mind that some of the key design decisions made in the software design process may have been intimately connected to the SO policies. While it may seem like good sense to tweak the SO policies here and there, that has to be done very carefully to be sure that one understands the possible ramifications throughout the software platform. E.g in the case at hand, SO may have specified such a strict policy for spam etc. because there is no way for the platform to easily deal with the abuse that is possible with a more liberal policy. Not to mention that they probably have much more experience dealing with matters involving abuse and gaming of the system. So one shouldn't be so quick to dismiss their policies without careful analysis.

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8096)

2010-08-05T18:42:19-07:00

For the record, I think that applying SO policies here is generally a bad idea.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8094)

2010-08-05T18:25:10-07:00

@François: Indeed, I mentioned those SO threads in my first post in this thread. I had presumed that we were supposed to be following the SO policies on such matters since there is no MO policy stating otherwise. But at least one MO person thinks otherwise. Hopefully the mods will clarify the matter.

François G. Dorais comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8092)

2010-08-05T17:40:58-07:00

Here is a description of how the spam/offensive flags work. Closing a question, whatever the reason, has no effect on reputation.

José Figueroa comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8091)

2010-08-05T16:47:05-07:00

Andy is right: the SE guidelines mentioned above are for flags, which I take to mean the "flag" link next to the "close" (or "reopen") link. On the couple of occasions when I have flagged a post as spam, I would like to believe that the "spamness" was not subject to interpretation, and any ill consequence my flag could have on the spammer are wholly deserved.

When it comes to closing questions as spam, on the other hand, a liberal interpretation of what is considered spam is fine, as "closing as spam" should have no lasting effect on the person posting the question. (Someone more knowledgeable about the inner workings of the site can correct me if I'm wrong.)

As for deflecting "spam" to math.SE, I really don't think that is a good idea. We are not trying to undermine them and if we think of a question as "spam", then chances are they would too. It's a different story for questions deemed "too localized", for example. I think the best course of action towards questions we feel are inappropriate for MO is to close them, after offering some explanation and, if appropriate, links to other sites. But if someone insists on asking inappropriate questions, despite the community's objection, then it is fair to ask the moderators to intervene.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8090)

2010-08-05T16:38:50-07:00

Yes, Andy is correct. I stress again that I was merely trying to give some examples of how bad things can get without explicitly specified policies, active moderation etc (even ABC publicly acknowledged such problems in the other forum where our dispute took place a couple years ago - which had mimimal and highly inconsistent moderation and no publicly stated policies whatsoever).

If MO is not following the SO policies then I think it is high time that MO explicitly specifies its policies, and that the mods make it clear that abuse will not be tolerated lightly. If my rep has taken a hit for bringing these matters to light then so be it. To me that is a small price to pay to get these issues addressed now before they lead to bigger problems down the road for MO. And, at the very least, I hope that my revelations will help prevent ABC from similarly abusing a more junior member who may not be in a position to speak up against such injustices.

Andy Putman comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8089)

2010-08-05T15:52:45-07:00

@Ryan : I believe that what Bill is referring to is not voting to close threads as spam, but flagging responses as spam/offensive.

Ryan Budney comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8088)

2010-08-05T15:46:15-07:00

@Bill, I suspect I share common experiences with most MO users in this respect: I have no idea what damage to your reputation you've suffered, and if it weren't for you bringing it up all the time I wouldn't have contemplated it.

I suspect I agree with many when I use "close as spam" to indicate we've come to the conclusion that the user is attempting to clog-up MO with information not relevant to the forum, i.e. a systematic attempt to disrupt. That could be commercial spam or simply frequent disruptive posts. I believe this is a common interpretation of spam -- my spam filter chucks away Nigerian-style scams, posts with deliberate trojan attacks, Viagra adverts, etc. But yes, perhaps we should have a discussion as to what exactly "spam" should mean. If it doesn't mean what I use it to mean, I think we'll need to revise the options for closing threads, as we'd be missing a key option. Perhaps "not a real question" would be the next best option, although sometimes these posts contain real questions, ones that are deliberately not suitable for MO.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8087)

2010-08-05T14:44:12-07:00

@Andrew: The point of sharing my experiences above was to try to give some constructive feedback on what I believe to be very serious issues - issues that I've seen lead to the downfall of other math forums. But, alas, I'm having a hard time being taken seriously since ABC has already done so much damage to my rep. So I'll leave it at that. Hopefully ABC will mend his ways.

Andy Putman comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8086)

2010-08-05T14:35:24-07:00

@Bill : Given the way you comport yourself here on meta, I don't think anyone is hurting their career by getting fed up with you. This whole business is getting tiresome and distracting. As I said above : will you PLEASE take this somewhere more appropriate?

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8084)

2010-08-05T14:32:32-07:00

@Andy: You're completely missing the point: ABC has the chip - not I. I never said one bad thing about ABC (or anybody) before he launched his attacks here. If you knew me from other forums you would realize how laughable your "thin skin" remark is.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8083)

2010-08-05T14:30:58-07:00

@Mariano: Sorry, if you don't like the truth then don't listen. Abuse is abuse. I'm sad to see the moderators allow it simply because the perp has high rep. As I stressed above, the real issue is not the "spam punishment" but the character assassinations by ABC which the moderators have allowed unchecked. The sad part is that ABC doesn't realize just how much damage he has done to his career already - despite my best efforts to tell people to forget about it. Perhaps they would have if ABC hadn't resorted to his old ways and attacked me as soon as I joined MO. I never expected anyone to hold a grudge for two years. Hopefully others can learn from this experience even if ABC refuses to do so.

Andy Putman comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8082)

2010-08-05T14:30:19-07:00

+1000 Mariano!

Bill, I don't think you're winning friends or converts like this. All you're doing is showing us that you have pretty thin skin and a big chip on your shoulder.

Does yelling insults at people ever change their minds?

Mariano comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8079)

2010-08-05T14:17:51-07:00

Bill, terms like abusive, juvenile, vengeful, sordid affair, cohort &c simply do not help at all... :/

To be honest, if someone picks flagging a MO post, out of the myriad of possibilities available, to be abusive, vengeful and sordid, well... can't we just giggle a little bit, marvel at his/her utter lack of imagination and almost heart-warming naïveté, and pass on to more interesting matters?

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8077)

2010-08-05T13:45:12-07:00

@Scott: the community should be the judge of what is "off-topic noise" or allowed humor -- not you. The moderators should have not allowed that vengeful spam flagging to stand. As it is, now some very good mathematicians who would would have otherwise joined MO refuse to do so because they think that MO folks are completely lacking a sense of humor (among other issues). When announcing MO, I explicitly added a link to that post in addition to a bunch of other strong mathematical posts to show that MO does have a sense of humor - never imagining that it might get marked as spam by some vengeful juveniles searching my old posts for the weakest one on which to enact "punishment". Imagine my embarrassment when I had to try to explain what happened after the link to that post became stale. As I said above, local actions can have global consequences. By permitting that abusive act to stand, MO has lost the respect of some mathematicians who could have made important contributions - despite my best efforts to convince them otherwise. I think it is important that the moderators realize the consequences of their (in)actions on such matters. Moderation is not something that's taught at Berkeley or anywhere else. Rather, it's learned in the school of hard knocks - after much experience. Welcome to the school of hard knocks. Hopefully you do learn from its lessons. That is absolutely essential if you wish MO to grow beyond the Secret Blogging Old Boys Network.

Mariano comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8075)

2010-08-05T13:24:28-07:00

Hmmm. That was pretty much the definition of spam I was using. I guess I can drop it and readopt it. :)

Andy Putman comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8074)

2010-08-05T13:16:19-07:00

+1 to Kevin's excoriation of mean-spirited humor. When I was younger (probably around Harry's age), I found such things amusing. However, I grew out of it at some point, and I suspect that Harry will as well. I think this is especially true given that (in my experience) most trolls are either very confused or bitter and unhappy. I think it is particularly unseemly to make fun of such people.

I also vote in favor of adopting Andrew Stacey's broader notion of spam.

Scott Carnahan comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8073)

2010-08-05T13:08:06-07:00

I'm not speaking for the moderator collective here, but I'm personally in favor of adopting Andrew Stacey's broader notion of spam, with respect to flagging criteria. That is, if a post is very off-topic, I don't see a problem with flagging it as spam. This is in the interest of keeping the signal-to-noise ratio reasonably high. You should definitely use discretion, though.

If I'm not mistaken, Bill Dubuque's answer to this question is the deleted post that yielded most of the current long discussion. It is related to the above paragraph, because the answer was over 95% off-topic noise. I genuinely appreciate Bill's mathematical contributions here, but I would prefer if he broadcast his artful wordplay somewhere else.

Kevin Buzzard comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8072)

2010-08-05T12:04:43-07:00

@Harry: "because it's funny". I think that humour at the expense of someone else is pretty low humour, and precisely what we are trying to avoid.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8071)

2010-08-05T11:34:33-07:00

@Harry: but by top I could well mean the top 100, not top 14. I didn't expect that anyone would actively try to determine ABC's identity. Please don't speculate here since that would lead to no good.

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8070)

2010-08-05T11:30:10-07:00

Edit: I've removed my speculation here because it can only do harm.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8069)

2010-08-05T11:25:48-07:00

To be clear: please refrain from making any ABC conjectures!

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8068)

2010-08-05T11:16:33-07:00

@Harry: but MO has a lot of folks from older math forums who had strong opinions one way or another about crank bashing. So I think ABC's identity is quite safe. I wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to protect it only to make it easily inferred. But please do heed my warning about crank bashing. It was one of the true cancers of sci.math.

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8067)

2010-08-05T10:55:02-07:00

@Bill: You should probably stop giving out so many details about ABC, since it appears that you've narrowed it down to two people. People who were active on sci.math probably already know who you are talking about, and if you do want to reconcile with ABC, it seems that bringing this up on meta isn't going to help.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8064)

2010-08-05T10:46:28-07:00

@Harry: Crank bashing is one of the biggest problems that led to the demise of sci.math. I've never understood why even some respected mathematicians get some enjoyment from this. In fact the dispute between ABC and I ultimately goes back to my attempts to moderate probably the worst crank basher of all time (that's how ABC and I first crossed paths).

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8063)

2010-08-05T10:35:57-07:00

Dear Emerton,

I guess that the reason "because it's funny" won't cut it.

;)

Emerton comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8062)

2010-08-05T10:15:43-07:00

Dear Harry,

I am a tenured professor, and nevertheless, I see no reason to be rude to cranks. I can understand that they are frustating to deal with, and shouldn't be welcomed on MO, but that is not an excuse for rudeness. If someone constantly posts unwelcome questions/answers in such a way as to be disruptive to the site, than the moderators can penalize them in the same way that they would penalize any disruptive user. If, however, someone politely posts material that is nevertheless inappropriate, then penalties and rudeness are uncalled for. The posts can be downvoted and/or closed, and ideally, the person can be directed somewhere else.

I don't think that posts we regard as crankish (rather than as simply too low level) should be sent to math.SE. Ignoring them (i.e. not making attempt to redirect them, but just downvoting/closing), as Kevin suggests, is one option. As I already indicated, I also think that Andy's suggestion of sending them to Equalis could be a good solution.

Incidentally, I think that the question on cosets, although poorly phrased, was a reasonable one in principle, which (to my mind) would fit in on Math.SE.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8061)

2010-08-05T09:55:58-07:00

@Kevin Thanks. I'd be quite happy if the whole affair was simply just a bunch of "bull". But, alas, it's the most unnerving affair I've encountered in over a few decades online and I deeply regret that ABC carried it over onto MO. I just want to be sure that it does not continue here. Hopefully the moderators will keep an eye out and that will be the end of it. If perchance a moderator (or anyone else with great mediation skills) thinks that they might be able to help patch up things between ABC and I then please do contact me at my first.last@gmail.com. All my good faith efforts to do so have met with silence and/or bounced/blocked emails. In the few other rare occasions that I've ever had an online disagreement with a colleague they've all been resolved quickly with offline discussion. But that's impossible here since ABC refuses to communicate except online. It's a bizarre stalemate. I regret having to make noise about it here but I'm hoping that will cause ABC to stop (it did in the past). Alas, it's the only way I have to communicate with ABC.

Moreover, it's a good example of the kind of problems that may arise when proper policies are not in place. That was my primary point of mentioning it.

Kevin Buzzard comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8060)

2010-08-05T09:45:02-07:00

@Bill: PS I have just realised that one of your comments implies that I incorrectly referred to you as "Bull" instead of "Bill". Is that true? If so, I apologise: a genuine slip (if I've understood correctly---I think it's gone now, if it existed) and one that I can see might well have annoyed you!

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8059)

2010-08-05T09:44:32-07:00

@Kevin: Surely there are enough tenured professors here to be rude to the cranks without the rest of us putting future jobs at risk!!

I am, of course, attempting a half-joke (whence came the exclamation points).

Kevin Buzzard comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8058)

2010-08-05T09:43:17-07:00

@Bill: done. I think that you might want to consider starting a new thread about the wider issues you want to raise.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8057)

2010-08-05T09:39:32-07:00

@Andy I'm not whining at all. I'm simply mentioning issues that need to be addressed. If these things happened to you then I doubt you'd be so restrained.

@Harry. There was no need for Kevin's remark, even if "Bull" was a typo.

I think if everyone knew the sordid details they would instead think I was quite restrained considering the events. I have not said one bad thing about ABC here. Indeed, I'm going out of my way to protect his identity. I don't think he realizes the consequences of his actions. Some of my MIT/Harvard colleagues are people that might be deciding on his tenure someday. ABC should feel lucky that, unlike he, I am not a person who holds grudges. I've not even revealed any details to the MO moderators. I wish ABC would let the past go and realize that his grudges are based on misunderstandings due to his stubborn refusal to communicate offline.

Kevin Buzzard comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8056)

2010-08-05T09:39:10-07:00

@Harry: what Andy said. This is the whole point! You can't just be rude to someone because you think they're not worth anything. In a public forum you *have* to be civil if you're going to participate, otherwise your potential boss in 15 years time googles for you, finds something stupid you said and decides you're an idiot and decides not to hire you. You have to be very careful what you say on an easily-googlable public place. So we're trying to find a solution by which we remain civil and yet get the cranky proofs off our hands. One very easy answer is send everything to math.SE; this is civil, but may have appalling side-effects for math.SE. Another possibility is ignoring them completely: this is arguably not civil, but might be the preferred option. I think it might be a good first step though, to be honest. If X posts 10 posts and they all get closed and very little explanation is offered, then X may just go away.

Andy Putman comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8055)

2010-08-05T09:34:58-07:00

@Bill : Your constant off-topic whining is getting a bit tiresome. If you want to complain about how you are treated, please do it in a more appropriate thread.

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8054)

2010-08-05T09:32:28-07:00

@Andy: Haha, awesome.

@Bill: Come on, the keys are literally right next to one another. I think it's safe to say that it's an honest typo. Now, if you had some kind of evidence that Kevin did not use a qwerty keyboard, maybe you'd be on to something, but I think you're jumping to conclusions.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8053)

2010-08-05T09:31:28-07:00

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8052)

2010-08-05T09:23:41-07:00

But first one needs a *definition* of spam. Else, as I stressed, spam flagging can be abused -- as it already has (cf. my example above).

Emerton comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8051)

2010-08-05T09:22:53-07:00

Dear Andy,

Brilliant!

Andy Putman comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8050)

2010-08-05T09:20:20-07:00

I propose that we redirect crackpots and spammy questions to http://www.equalis.com/forums/

Andy Putman comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8049)

2010-08-05T09:18:33-07:00

@Harry : Because being rude is unprofessional.

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8048)

2010-08-05T09:13:49-07:00

@Kevin: I guess I'm not understanding why we can't be rude to them.

Kevin Buzzard comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8047)

2010-08-05T09:12:26-07:00

@Mariano: I think the issue is that if we get a spammy question then we could either vote it down a lot and close it without making any comments at all, thus perhaps giving the impression of being rather rude, or we could vote it down a lot and close it as well as making nice comments of the form "try this place instead for your question; it's not appropriate here". The issue is what "this place" is. It would be very easy to send _everything_ to math.SE but might not be a good idea. Where to send the crackpots otherwise? Or is the policy that we just close and downvote without commenting?

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8046)

2010-08-05T09:11:36-07:00

My point, I think, is this: if we, the community, are not going to send cranky stuff to Math.SE, then where are we going to send it? I think that's perhaps the question people should be focusing on.

Cranky stuff should receive an immediate ban.

Edit: Mariano +1.

Mariano comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8045)

2010-08-05T09:05:21-07:00

We don't have to send it anywhere, Kevin.

Kevin Buzzard comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8044)

2010-08-05T09:03:52-07:00

@Tom: I used to try and implement the strategy you suggest. The problem is when someone submits a post to sci.math.research saying "I have proved the goldbach conjecture: take a look at this pdf and please send me any comments or corrections", and you look at the pdf and it's just plainly gibberish and about 3 pages long. So then I would say "This isn't at the right level: please post at sci.math" and then I get the response "but it's clearly the right level because it's a new proof of a famous open conjecture".

My point, I think, is this: if we, the community, are not going to send cranky stuff to Math.SE, then *where are we going to send it?* I think that's perhaps the question people should be focussing on.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8043)

2010-08-05T08:59:51-07:00

My intent was not to get off-track. The example I mentioned is one of many common problems that may arise without proper policies in place. The old dispute between ABC and I almost surely would've never happened if the other forum had in place clear rules about what was on-topic and, further, had active strong moderators. Both are essential for preventing problems like this. If MO is not using the SO rules for spam/offensive posts then there should be a clearly stated policy as to precisely what the MO rules are. Any fuzziness can lead to disputes and tension in the community. Sparks can easily become flames.

Tom Stephens comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8042)

2010-08-05T08:41:15-07:00

From Andrew Stacey's last remark: "But to make a gainful attempt to get back on track [emphasis added]. We should only redirect questions to math.SE if we think that that is the best place for that question. And in reading that statement, I draw people's attention to the fact that I regard a question as comprising both the written question and the person asking it. So if the person is an obvious troll, then even if the question is reasonable I would not redirect it to math.SE."

This sounds great to me. We appreciate the business as well as your most prudent filter.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8041)

2010-08-05T08:34:32-07:00

@Andrew: I don't know if Anton even realized what was going on - not being aware of the history - which dates back two years ago. It all boils down to the fact that one of the highest rep MO members (say ABC) has an (unfounded) axe to grind with me and has used his powers here to tarnish my good name. That's why I was upset in that other MMO thread. It really had nothing to do with Mariano's minor edit to my post. That was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. Originally I thought that Mariano was a cohort of ABC (since he was also involved in the old dispute) but now I realize that he was probably simply an innocent bystander that was drawn into the affair after stumbling upon our arguments (two years ago and again recently). Even though I've made many attempts to patch up matters with ABC there seems to be no hope since he refuses to communicate by email (he's even blocked my email accounts). So I was deeply saddened when he resumed the attacks when I joined MO. The spam penalty only added insult to injury. I expected a middle-aged professor to be much more mature. But we're all human.... Unfortunately the SO/MO model gives high-rep people the power to grind whatever axe they desire. There's not necessarily any correlation between high MO rep and moderation abilities, integrity, etc. The model is ripe for abuse. Beware of self-selected moderators/superusers.

Andrew Stacey comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8040)

2010-08-05T08:19:44-07:00

Bill, and "one swallow does not make a summer"! I do not condone the behaviour that you describe (without full knowledge of the facts - which I do not want - I cannot make a stronger statement), but as you say, Anton removed the 100 point penalty. I am sure that he also sent an email to the perpetrator telling them not to do that again, assuming that what you say is what actually happened. However, that does not imply that MO is rife with immaturity! I would like to see more evidence of that before changing my behaviour which, despite Mr Bystander's truly bizarre interjection, I have yet to hear any complaints about.

I will admit that I use the spam flag in a certain fashion because I know that it will delete the post if enough people agree with me. I agree that the official definition of spam refers to bulk advertising email. Given that we don't get any of that (do we?), and that we have to work with what we are given, I view co-opting the spam flag to "get this out of my sight as soon as possible" a reasonable thing to do. In addition, since our moderators have jobs that do not involve moderating MO (unlike the head honchos at SO), I don't expect them to be sitting by a keyboard ready to leap in to action the moment someone posts something that shouldn't be here. That task has, for better or for worse, been delegated to the community.

Of course, there will be situations in which power is abused. And that's why, at the end of the day (yet more cliches), there are human moderators who can intervene.

But to make a gainful attempt to get back on track. We should only redirect questions to math.SE if we think that that is the best place for that question. And in reading that statement, I draw people's attention to the fact that I regard a question as comprising both the written question and the person asking it. So if the person is an obvious troll, then even if the question is reasonable I would not redirect it to math.SE.

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8039)

2010-08-05T08:18:29-07:00

@Bill: If you could give the evidence without naming names, you will be able to convince us of the problem without turning it into a flamewar. If what you said really happened, I'm sure that it won't be allowed to happen again.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8038)

2010-08-05T08:12:48-07:00

If MO members are interested I can describe the whole sordid affair. I did not do this before because I did not wish to tarnish the reputation of the high-rep MO member nor did I wish to waste the valuable time of the moderators. My intent was not to punish the people involved, but merely to indicate that *some* MO folks *are* doing juvenile things that *will* harm the health of the forum. I've been involved in online math forums for a few decades so I know the dynamics much better than do most. It's a shame to see the same things happening over and over. People are people. They will bump heads, bystanders will jump in supporting their virtual buddies not knowing any of the history etc. The way to avoid such things getting out of hand is to have *clear* rules and *strong* moderation so that sparks never become flames. Alas, both are missing on MO.

Harry Gindi comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8037)

2010-08-05T08:09:18-07:00

@Bystander: Whenever a "bystander" comes here and makes a comment like you just have, it is inevitably worthless, inflammatory, and therefore summarily ignored (cf. [Ironical Observer], for instance). If you are interested in voicing your opinion here, please do so with the same name you use on MO, or your real name.

If you do not participate on MO and have no intention to, I kindly ask that you refrain from posting on discussions of MO policy.

I further ask that you clear the above comment (you can no longer delete comments) and replace it with something worthwhile.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8036)

2010-08-05T08:06:47-07:00

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8035)

2010-08-05T08:05:21-07:00

@Mariano: as I described above

Kevin Buzzard comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8034)

2010-08-05T08:05:20-07:00

Let me try and steer the thread back on topic by making the following remark: I've been a moderator for the USENET newsgroup sci.math.research for a while now, and let me broadly say that I could break down the posts I do not accept for use into roughly three categories:

1) Those about genuine mathematics but not hard enough for sci.math.research
2) Those which are just cranky nonsense with pseudo-maths in (what is being referred to as "spam", as far as I can see, in this thread)
3) True spam (by which I mean someone trying to sell me viagra).

My default reaction with these three types of message, as well as rejecting them, are:

1) reply to poster, sending them to sci.math, knowing they'll get an answer
2) reply to poster, sending them to sci.math, being almost sure that they will start a flame war
3) delete without replying to the poster.

Note in particular that (2) is simply a more old-skool version of what is happening here. You have to remember that barely any serious professional mathematicians read sci.math, as far as I can see, and many of those that do are I think actually reading it for the flame wars!

Mariano comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8033)

2010-08-05T08:04:19-07:00

I know about the answer with the logo &c. But I wondered what organized effort to penalize someone you have in mind.

Bystander comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8032)

2010-08-05T08:02:10-07:00

Mr Stacey: I agree with Bill Dubuque. In another post your remark that your behavior in MO was probably was not much better than Harry's, is the truest confession you ever made, fitting with so many of your actions.

Come on, what do you mean? A user's harmless questions are marked spam and results in reputation penalty to him/her and you support this? I do not understand.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8031)

2010-08-05T07:55:09-07:00

@Mariano: see my post above

Mariano comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8030)

2010-08-05T07:52:35-07:00

What organized efforts to penalize someone?

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8029)

2010-08-05T07:48:35-07:00

@Andrew Organized unfounded efforts to penalize someone does not bode well for the future of MO - esp. when the moderators allow such. More senior mathematicians will not join a list where such juvenile behavior is left unchecked.

Please note that I only criticized the behavior of *some* MO members. But it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the whole bunch - esp. in a virtual bunch.

Andrew Stacey comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8028)

2010-08-05T07:44:02-07:00

Bill, official SO policies are not official MO policies. If you think that there is something wrong with how the spam flag is used here, I recommend that you start a discussion here and that the discussion concentrate on MathOverflow and not bring in Grand Designs from SO. Just because we use their software doesn't mean that we have to use every single part of their model. I am very sorry that you don't consider our behaviour "mature enough", but I, for one, see no reason to change based on what you say there. If you have a stronger argument to make, I would be glad to read it.

Bill Dubuque comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8027)

2010-08-05T07:16:44-07:00

@VP Regarding spam, it seems that many MO members (and even some moderators) are not familiar with the official SE policies - which have very strict rules on what constitutes spam or offensive posts. See

http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/58032/how-does-the-spam-flag-work
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/22174/how-does-the-offensive-flag-work/

I know this only because if was pointed out to me by a very senior SE person who was quite upset that one of my posts was incorrectly marked as spam - apparently in an organized vengeful effort sparked by an old (unfounded!) grudge that a high-rep MO member holds against me. Unconscionably, the MO moderators let the post be deleted even though it was *very* far from satisfying said official SE spam specification. Indeed, my post contained the same sort of reply as all the other replies - except it concluded with a little wordplay joke about Jacobi symbols and my MO logo - a Jacobi symbol (math/flow). Even though Anton did the right thing and removed the 100 point spam penalty, it still left a very bad taste in my mouth. Needless to say, it was a very unpleasant way to welcome a new MO member.

The behavior of some MO members leaves much to be desired. Now some world-class mathematicians whom I had invited to join MO refuse to join because they became aware of this incident (I had forwarded a link to this post (and others) to a list where such math jokes are quite welcome). For MO to succeed people need to start behaving much more maturely. Local irresponsible actions can have dire global consequences for the health of a budding community.

Akhil Mathew comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8021)

2010-08-05T05:48:00-07:00

I agree that questions that are ill-defined or too vague shouldn't be redirected to math.SE, simply because most of us there (as far as I can tell) don't like them any more than we do on MO. I don't actually object to the division algorithms question: it's not MO-level, but specific enough for math.SE.

We don't yet have a clear consensus on homework questions, but I think the math.SE community generally agrees that if it is simply "Compute \int x^3 dx," it would be closed. (At least, I would vote to close, and I'm pretty sure a few other users there would too.)

VP comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8006)

2010-08-04T23:21:24-07:00

I was bemused by the characterization of the coset question as "spam". Maybe, I don't understand what spam is. Or maybe everyone is very hot and irate after seeing lots of poor quality questions lately*: in the past, I've seen questions that didn't make half as much sense as that one, and they weren't either criticized in the comments or closed - they are still out there. Yuck! (By contrast, the question under discussion seems to have been deleted.)

Some people may even be irate after arguing that some questions of comparable quality should not have been closed.

Tom Stephens comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8005)

2010-08-04T22:16:04-07:00

@Sean: The site is running well, quite independently of MO (albeit, MO is the defacto model for Math.SE). I presume that the vast majority of MO users would not be enthusiastic about merging anything Math.SE related into this site - including rep. and meta threads (and you'd be surprised how many Math.SE users feel the same in reverse). You may want to dig around and see just how different MO really is from other SE sites (and everything else for that matter). And, the two threads are linked now.

sean tilson comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8004)

2010-08-04T21:51:53-07:00

@Mariano: I agree that the question was "MO-spam" but was just curious about whether or not that meant it would not be appropriate for Math.SE.

@Tom: i tried to post something like this on Meta.Math.SE (??) and couldnt because there meta is set up differently, I think it would be great if you could link to whatever post you make there back here so that we can see what the moderators say. In fact, i wish accounts could be associated between MO and Math.SE, i posted just such a discussion topic in here moments ago in fact.

Tom Stephens comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8002)

2010-08-04T21:28:20-07:00

By the way, it may interest you to know that we have several moderators now, and they're good.

Mariano comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (8001)

2010-08-04T21:12:53-07:00

The reason I think that is a spammy question is because he had just asked a rather unrelated question, with as much care and added-value, and despite several attempts made by others at indicating the problems did not even made sure that the question made sense.

Of course one can ask sensible questions on the utility of cosets (and much more so of double cosets, which most people end up considering to be part of the realm of Things That Only Exist In The First Couple Of Exercises In An Introductory Textbook!)

Tom Stephens comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (7999)

2010-08-04T21:02:09-07:00

I have been hanging around here more frequently since Math.SE has been underway - and I watched today's spam session unfold. I'll bring this up EDIT: I brought this up over in our Meta, maybe we can come up with some sort of protocol on this issue.

It turned out that the most offensive spammer of the day never appeared on Math.SE, thanks goodness. This question showed up and was answered in typical haphazard style (including a haphazard answer of mine... tisk, tisk.) In the future I will refrain from rattling off an answer to a poorly worded/motivated question without making attempts to have the question rephrased or placed into context - this seems to be the policy over here at MO and I think we would do well to adopt it consistently.

As for receiving properly worded questions that just don't seem to fit over here, we'll take 'em. There are a growing number of regulars at Math.SE that seem to be able to handle pretty much anything, and it is good for those of us less advanced to see what is out there and try our hand at those questions that lie just at the edge of our grasp.

sean tilson comments on ""Spam Deflection"" (7997)

2010-08-04T20:24:05-07:00

In a comment to a recently closed question, Mariano stated that we should not redirect spam to Math.SE.
See: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/34571/what-is-the-use-of-cosets-closed
I am curious about the consensus of the community and particularly the Moderators of MO as well as those more involved at Math.SE. I think this question in particular could work well at Math.SE and might not be considered spam there. It seems that there have been more and more people asking lots of "Spammy questions" as of late. Maybe it could be added to the mentioned feature request that we suggest they ask the question at Math.SE. If this stuff is discussed in another thread, my apologies.
Thanks,
Sean