tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!)

Harry Gindi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1724)

Harry Gindi — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:15:39 -0800

Thank you (the three of you) who spent time to write your responses. Claiming that I've "learned my lesson" would be insincere, but I've learned something, and I'd like you to know that I appreciate your helpful advice.

Emerton comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1723)

Emerton — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:03:32 -0800

Dear Harry,

Buzzard's and Noah's comments reflect something that may not be completely obvious to you, and it might help if I make it more explicit: while it is quite possible that for you this site is your main point (or at least a major point) of contact and communication with the research mathematics world, for many of the professional mathematicians contributing, it is just one small part of a large number of contacts, both professional and personal, that they have with one another. (For example, I email one prominent participant here almost every other day, another has the office next to me, another has been a friend for around twenty years, another was in the same graduate class as me, with the same advisor, and continues to work in the same field, and so on ... .) Mathematics is quite a small world, the lines of communication are thick, and this site is just one small part of them. If you go on in mathematics, you will surely personally encounter many of the people who are now involved in the site, and many more of them will be reading your grad school applications, your post-doc applications, and so on. If you think of the people involved as your future colleagues (some at least of whom are quite a bit senior to you, and who will be making significant judgements on you and your work), it may help you figure out the best way to interact with them.

It is not a question of censoring your intellectual contributions or deferring to authority. It is rather a question of asking yourself: I'm discussing these issues (be they mathematics, programming, teaching, job arrangements, ...) with people many of whom have been dealing with the issues personally and professionally for years or possibly decades, and who have carefully considered opinions, developed over those years of experience; how should I discuss these things with them? I think the evident answer is: in measured tones, with carefully thought out ideas of my own, and with a willingness to accept that others could have different views based on different experiences than mine (and in some contexts at least, much greater experience).

Noah Snyder comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1722)

Noah Snyder — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:44:57 -0800

Harry I think you need to think seriously about what buzzard said above. Your aggressive attitude on this site is giving you a bad reputation among mathematicians. Whether the downvotes are fair to your "reputation" on this site they're a reflection of your reputation among the mathematicians who use this site. That said, I'm sure if you can relax and become a more positive influence no one is going to hold your behavior thus far against you in the long run. But if you expect to have a carear as mathematician it's in your interest to reflect seriously on how you come across and why people might want to downvote you (which I think I have not done, though I have several times flagged comments of yours as offensive).

Kevin Buzzard comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1707)

Kevin Buzzard — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:29:14 -0800

Harry: you're absolutely right in that we don't *want* to make voting on questions and answers a popularity contest. Indeed I believe I've never voted down an answer of yours, and indeed have only ever voted down questions that are "nonsense" and answers that contain serious misinformation or are downright wrong, and I am assuming that you are doing the same---indeed, the bottom line is that you and I probably think in rather similar ways. But the real world sometimes (often!) thinks (and acts!) differently to me.

Harry Gindi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1706)

Harry Gindi — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:23:53 -0800

Do we really want to make voting on questions and answers a popularity contest? I thought that they were on a post-by-post basis. I guess the community can make that decision. As for your other criticisms, I accept them without condition and will consider them in the future before making comments.

Kevin Buzzard comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1705)

Kevin Buzzard — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:56:57 -0800

Summary of this thread so far:

Harry: "I leave contentious comments which, were I to think about it for more than 1 second, I would realise other people might find annoying and even insulting (especially people whose opinions differ from mine). Moreover, there is a much larger body of people out there who are simply following the threads I'm contibuting to, and, even though I am not commenting on their opinions, they might well also find my comments immature and insulting. Why am I being downvoted?"

Everyone else: "..."

Harry: there are at _least_ three people on MO, and probably several more, who are professional mathematicians at decent research universities and who have a great amount of say in graduate admissions at these universities. If your application to grad school were to land on their desk tomorrow, I would genuinely not be surprised if it were rejected without even being read. You clearly know some mathematics, but I'm not sure that I would want you gracing my mathematics department common room with what appears to me to be very loud and arrogant opinions, and woe betide anyone who disagrees with you. Look at the way the moderators handle "stupid" questions---polite explanations as to why they're closing the thread. Now look at a generic comment you make. To be honest I find it hard to believe that you don't understand why you're making enemies.

I guess one reason I find your comments on computer programming languages particularly annoying is that (assuming you're "sophomore age" as well as a sophomore) I have been coding since before you were born, in many different environments and solving problems of many different natures, so place very little weight on your opinions on what consitutes a good programming language. And yet my contributions to this thread are minimal and yours seem to be very loud. You seem to be assuming that you're talking to your peers (i.e. other sophomores, most of whom will no doubt know less about category theory and computer programming than you do). But you're talking to a huge chunk of the mathematical world, and possibly making a fool of yourself in front of them.

In short: you absolutely need to learn when to keep quiet. If you can't say something nice, best say nothing at all.

Harry Gindi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1704)

Harry Gindi — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 01:08:10 -0800

Again?!? Come on, even Pete Clark acknowledged that our posts touched on the same points, and someone just downvoted mine out of spite without leaving a comment.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/11296/were-bourbaki-committed-to-set-theoretical-reductionism/11317#11317

I haven't even posted anything controversial in comments or otherwise since the programming thread, and still, someone's just downvoting my posts at a constant rate. It's really irritating coming back to MO to find a post downvoted, without even a reason why. The person doing this may have a valid criticism, but since he hasn't been leaving comments, I can't even address the criticism. I know that the staff can't do anything, but this really is annoying.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1691)

Anton Geraschenko — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:50:15 -0800

@Jonas: Chances are, if you're flagging something as spam, it's clearly spam and the spammer isn't going to repent or change his ways because of your comment. The right thing to do is probably to leave a comment encouraging other people to flag it as spam to get it automatically deleted. If you're flagging something as offensive, I think it's great if you leave a comment explaining what the problem is, but I can also understand that you may be flagging a very confrontational or aggressive person and you don't want to drain your emotional energy on an internet confrontation that probably won't lead to anything of any value. If you leave comments when flagging, that's great, but I'd rather you flag truly inappropriate content and not comment rather than do nothing because you don't want to get involved by commenting.

Jonas Meyer comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1686)

Jonas Meyer — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:52:14 -0800

"[W]hen a post is flagged as spam/offensive, it is automatically downvoted by the community user, who obviously doesn't leave a comment."

Sorry if this was already mentioned, but perhaps then it would be good policy to comment whenever flagging as spam/offensive, too.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1679)

Anton Geraschenko — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:31:17 -0800

One thing I should point out is that when a post is flagged as spam/offensive, it is automatically downvoted by the community user, who obviously doesn't leave a comment. If a post accumulates enough (I think 6) spam/offensive flags in 48 hours, the post is locked and deleted by the community user and the owner is penalized 100 reputation.

rwbarton:
I have started flagging comments I consider to be in an inappropriate tone for MO; something to consider perhaps.

That's exactly what flagging comments is for, so I encourage people to do it, but please remember to only flag comments that are actually inappropriate. One annoying thing that this leads to is deleted comments, which can make what remains of the comment thread make very little sense. I think this is mostly something we'll just have to live with, but for purposes of dealing with spammy/offensive comments, it would be very useful for moderators to be able to see deleted comments. So if you have some rep on meta.SE, please vote up this feature-request.

Harry Gindi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1668)

Harry Gindi — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:29:02 -0800

@Everyone: Thank you for leaving comments and criticism and I will take those things into account.

@Akhil: Surely not, but I wasn't against (as the op was) using Spivak, Rudin, or Stein-Shakarchi (although I certainly hadn't heard of the third one). What I said was completely true though: If you read Bourbaki from beginning to end in order, it's really great. I was flipping through book 2 (algebra) the other day, and what Serre said about "Bourbaki proofs" being really excellent is absolutely correct, although the 10 pages on manipulation of indices is really boring.

Anweshi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1654)

Anweshi — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:29:03 -0800

@Harry. I had a look at the answer Akhil was referring to. If you intended it seriously, I have a hard time believing that you actually tried to study real analysis for the first time as an undergrad, from Bourbaki.

@Pete. +1.

@Qiaochu. I do not see any problem with Harry having this particular view. But I objected to he posting "soft" questions himself, while dishing out vitriol to others for doing the same. The same scale should be used judging for oneself and others. I think the same is the problem with his commenting. He is unable to realize what others are feeling after reading them.

Akhil Mathew comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1653)

Akhil Mathew — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:14:42 -0800

Harry: Looking at the *questions* you've asked and the votes you've received, I don't think the community disapproves in any way. Also, most of your answers seem to have a net positive number of votes. I tend to find your comments unnecessarily harsh, but those aren't getting downvoted.

But if you claim that Bourbaki is the best resource for a beginning undergraduate who's never seen analysis before, I think it should be fairly obvious why you get downvoted. It's simply an extreme claim; I'm almost certain that the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to do that, and would end up detesting the subject as a result. Maybe you have that ability, but if you were to suggest War and Peace to a second-grader looking for light reading, you'd get downvoted, and this is no different.

rwbarton comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1651)

rwbarton — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:08:54 -0800

Pete: +1. I have started flagging comments I consider to be in an inappropriate tone for MO; something to consider perhaps.

Pete L. Clark comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1650)

Pete L. Clark — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:55:01 -0800

Complying with Harry's request, I made a comment on my one downvote of his non-CW answers.

If I could downvote comments, the story would be entirely different. Briefly, I agree with the posts of Ilya and Qiaochu. (@Ilya: it's hard to say whether you're too nice, because you are so close to the optimal amount of niceness, closer than I am. Keep up the good work.) I worry that one of the reasons that some people see MO as unwelcoming is that one of our loudest voices is a 20 year-old with a dogmatic outlook who places a high priority on "trying to be funny".

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1647)

Qiaochu Yuan — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:20:58 -0800

For what it's worth, Harry, I don't find any of your jokes funny. But the real issue I have with the way you post is that you have a very dogmatic outlook on mathematics that I find very off-putting. I guess you are free to embrace your own philosophy, though.

Ryan Budney comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1644)

Ryan Budney — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:40:30 -0800

Harry, you started this thread asking a sincere question and people have given you honest answers. It's probably a better idea to just accept their answers and adapt rather than defending yourself against those points of view.

In a forum like this with a wide variety of participants the kind of humour that plays well becomes pretty narrow. You've got people here who are hypersensitive about the way their field is perceived in the wider mathematical community. Telling them to lighten up on such issues is very similar to telling them to stop taking their careers seriously.

Harry Gindi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1643)

Harry Gindi — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:36:43 -0800

I did not tell him to leave. He came here and argued for a page about the vision that MO should embrace. I was merely making a suggestion that he move on if he couldn't accept the policies on MO that are listed in the FAQ. As I said before, out of context, my remark seems uncalled for, but in context, you can see that it's more an expression of exasperation than anything else. Also, I didn't appreciate him calling the Q&A policy totalitarian when there was a discussion going on specifically about that.

Anweshi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1642)

Anweshi — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:28:26 -0800

@Harry. As I already said, I am not disagreeing with your views. The only problem is in the outspoken way in which you express them, for instance here telling somebody else to leave. You never know who you are speaking with. That person might turn out to be a good mathematician.

Harry Gindi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1641)

Harry Gindi — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:25:00 -0800

Do you think that the administration and the rules suppress creative posts here? That is why I used the term "creative" in quotation marks. I have never seen the staff close a question for being too creative, and as I had said before, I disagree that the rules are too restrictive for good creative questions to come about.

Edit: In response to your quote of Ilya, the only consolation I can give is to tell the two of you lighten up a bit.

Anweshi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1640)

Anweshi — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:15:34 -0800

@Harry. Most of your bite is in the comments, which cannot be downvoted. So my theory is that people are downvoting your questions/answers instead.

Most of the time you are indeed funny. But sometimes it does get a bit too caustic. Maybe that is what is creating this problem. Of course this is just a theory, as I haven't downvoted you myself. But the thought did occur to me once, for the reason mentioned here.

Regarding Igor. Your twisting of the word "creative" could be treated as funny. But you had no right to tell him to leave. He also lives in this earth, just like you. However my seconding Ilya is for his precise highlighting of the following:

@Harry, since I'm a polite person, I won't be describing what I think about the level of your remarks about Python; but since you're not, you can pick up one of your own typical replies to things you dislike, and imagine I said it to you.

So, Imagine that people are speaking to you in the way you speak to them. How would it feel?

Harry Gindi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1639)

Harry Gindi — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:04:20 -0800

First of all, the posts that were downvoted were questions about mathematics (even the question about the exercise from Algebra is a good question according to the guidelines), and are perfectly reasonable questions.

As I already stated before, I understand exactly why my posts were voted down in the programming thread, mainly because I was trying to be funny. Intercal is funny, and so is http://jjaro.net/uploads/textual/real.pgmrs.txt , which is the famous source of my answer about FORTRAN.

Regarding me telling Igor off, please read the entire beginning of that discussion. He was complaining about the goals and vision of the site, not some feeling of being unwelcome. I was merely citing the FAQ and other precedents regarding the goals of the site. Perhaps telling him that he could leave was a bit harsh, but the rest of my response was completely justified in context, a fact to which many of the people involved in the discussion could attest.

Again, to reiterate, some of my comments in that thread were aimed at being funny (a feat at which I was apparently unsuccessful), and the others regarding Haskell, Python, and Java were my real opinion.

Anweshi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1638)

Anweshi — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:43:14 -0800

+1 to Ilya.

Ilya Nikokoshev comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1637)

Ilya Nikokoshev — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:38:34 -0800

You've left the following comments in the programming thread:

Another interesting feature of haskell is that it's awful. – Harry Gindi 21 hours ago
I know, Watson, let's compile it for a non-native cpu, then emulate that cpu and call it platform-independence. It's brilliant! – Harry Gindi yesterday
Really, Java? Java's as slow as molasses! – Harry Gindi yesterday
Programming in anything other than machine code is a waste of time. – Harry Gindi yesterday

Those comments are actively non-constructive, so I understand people who would want to downvote them (so, if your answers are of the same quality, they are downvoted for good reasons) . I remember that a month ago some of your posts were discussed and I think you should return there and think again. Again, the same people who already left you comments month ago could say the same things to you, but you haven't demonstrated that you will listen to the advice and change your behavior.

I understand that perhaps I am too nice to people; this is one of the reasons why I did leave a comment for you:

@Harry, since I'm a polite person, I won't be describing what I think about the level of your remarks about Python; but since you're not, you can pick up one of your own typical replies to things you dislike, and imagine I said it to you. – Ilya Nikokoshev 23 hours ago

Now, I hope that you excuse me if I repeat:

Harry, you really should think about things you post on the site. Many of them are non-constructive, ill-informed and inflammatory. The same applies for meta.
I would actually personally like you to stop participating in discussions about other people. Here's an example of your post:

If you don't like it, then leave. MO has a designated purpose, and letting in "creative" (read: not following the suggestions) questions tends to scare away serious mathematicians. Sure, they're alright from time to time, but if we let in every "creative" question, there would be no room for real mathematics. I'm sure everyone here could come up with a "creative" question that people will like, but they reserve them because this is a place for mathematics, not math discussion.

You line "If you don't like it, then leave" may represent your position, but it doesn't represent mine; since you're more vocal participant of discussions with other, you're, unfortunately, extremely influential in creating an atmosphere that you so smartly summarized in just one phrase.So, if you don't stop participating in discussion about other people, may I ask you to not create an impression that you represent me in this regard? For example, every time you say "community thinks so-and-so" please say "community (John Doe and Jane Doe, but not Ilya Nikokoshev) thinks so-and-so". Even better, say "I think so-and-so".

I'm sure once other people see you participating in discussions constructively, and see you respond to criticism, they will go back to giving you specific suggestions for improvement, as they usually do whenever they see others that could be improved.

Jon Awbrey comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1636)

Jon Awbrey — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:37:36 -0800

Harry,

You are highlighting one of the built-in inconsistencies of the social technical architecture in play on the main monkey bars. Whether it is an essential flaw or a removable sinkularity is one of the most important questions for the future viability of the MOFler modus operandi.

Harry Gindi comments on "People downvoting and still not leaving comments?!" (1635)

Harry Gindi — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:10:47 -0800

Could people please start leaving comments when they vote down my questions and answers that aren't community wiki? It's getting a little bit ridiculous.

Not a single vote down I've gotten in the past month (aside from that community wiki thread about programming) has been accompanied by a comment. Some people here seem to have a problem with the way I post. I don't know. I don't want to make a big deal about it, because having people vote me down doesn't really bother me. but I'd really appreciate it if those people, whoever they are, would leave comments so I can improve my posting in the future.