tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (blatantly offensive?)

Todd Trimble comments on "blatantly offensive?" (21710)

Todd Trimble — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 06:04:59 -0700

Thank you, Francois (or François).

François G. Dorais comments on "blatantly offensive?" (21707)

François G. Dorais — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:45:32 -0700

I re-closed as no longer relevant.

Steve Huntsman comments on "blatantly offensive?" (21706)

Steve Huntsman — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 13:51:24 -0700

As a sidebar, I agree (for the Nth time) with Todd's sentiment that "the quality of questions on average seems to be going downhill as MO gets older" and want to (for the (N-1)th time) repeat that material from the level of second year of grad school up should be on MO as a rule of thumb. There are questions on MSE that belong on MO and vice versa.

Todd Trimble comments on "blatantly offensive?" (21705)

Todd Trimble — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:37:42 -0700

Yeah, there is a lot of spammy stuff these days. Speaking generally, the quality of questions on average seems to be going downhill as MO gets older.

The thing that most worries me about this question is the potential for "earworm infestation", due to an association with Peter Frampton. (If this comment makes no sense to you, forget it. It's completely silly and unimportant.)

grp comments on "blatantly offensive?" (21702)

grp — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:11:27 -0700

I don't know that the question is blatantly offensive, but the
tenor of the comments following does not mollify; the choice of
reason for closing is a bit exaggerated, but using it to say
something about the appearance of attitude meets with my
approval. Then again, I'm in a mildly cranky mood today.

Re the question, did anyone consider setting t = 2/3 and
looking at the kth summand as sum j=k to inf t^jk ?

Gerhard "Perhaps Tomorrow Will Be Different" Paseman, 2013.03.26

Ryan Budney comments on "blatantly offensive?" (21701)

Ryan Budney — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:06:01 -0700

This isn't a perfectly apt usage of the "blatantly offensive" flag but I can see why people chose that rather than "off topic" or "too localized" in this instance. The OP was giving off a fairly imperious vibe with the "I hope it won't take another 4 hours in vain" comment.

There's been a more than the usual amount of spam the past few days. It looks to me like the people that choose to help with moderation are getting a little tired.

Todd Trimble comments on "blatantly offensive?" (21699)

Todd Trimble — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:23:31 -0700

I'm referring to this question, http://mathoverflow.net/questions/125528/the-closed-form-of-sum-k1-infty-left-frac23-rightk2-frac3k2, which was closed as "blatantly offensive".

I saw no edits, and the worst thing about this particular question was OP's peculiar insistence there had to be a closed form, and maybe a mild tone of impatience about the time OP was waiting for an answer over at MSE. But how is it blatantly offensive?

(Another question from OP seemed more obnoxious, as various versions of the question seem to be "baiting" mathematicians. (Incidentally, I didn't see an easy solution to that other question, having to do with $\int_0^1 x^{x^x} dx$, although it's easy enough to get confirmation from Mathematica that that's greater than $\log \sqrt{\pi}$.)