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Community: Should this question about amateur publishing have been closed as spam?

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    • CommentAuthorTeo B
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2013
     
    Hello, this is regarding http://mathoverflow.net/questions/118579/question-about-getting-review-services-closed, closed as "spam".

    In my opinion the question is more than sincere. This is not spam, it's someone asking for advice.

    I'm myself a professional mathematician, and of course I generally share the opinions of professional mathematicians with respect to this kind of stories. Here we agree. But this is not what I wanted to talk about: (1) first this is a question about publication, which seems to me on-topic, why not leaving it open, and (2) this is a forum having as audience many many amateurs, so why then being rude to such a request? Is this really a good idea? Is this what we want?
    • CommentAuthorYemon Choi
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2013 edited
     

    this is a forum having as audience many many amateurs

    I belong to the camp (or "tribe", or "police", or "snobs", or "guardians" or whichever label positive or negative others have used in the past) who think this is not MO's raison d'etre.

    However, that is somewhat separate from your first question. While I concede that there is a general question of how to publish and be read, separate from the issue of what one is publishing or claiming, I don't think it is really a question that needs answers beyond those already given.

    BTW, the journal claims to be peer-reviewed. The information given on the paper itself is:

    Received: September 23, 2012 Accepted: October 9, 2012 Online Published: November 21, 2012

    It is the referee or editors, rather than the author, who I feel most aggrieved with.

    • CommentAuthorYemon Choi
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2013 edited
     

    Moreover, while the author appears to demonstrate some self-awareness and willingness to admit error - two things often lacking in those labelled as cranks - he has previous form: see 0906.4155, not to mention the preprint version of the paper that he mentions ( 0706.0357 )

    "Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim" - Santayana

    • CommentAuthorTeo B
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2013
     
    @Yemon, humm.. http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.0357 that you point out, with its 41 versions (!) is indeed quite bizarre. I agree.

    Neveretheless, for not ending my evening and this meta thread without some personal attacks (which make the salt and pepper of science :)

    -- IMO the question was not closed by all 5 of you for this precise reason - and this kind of attitude could be subject of further debate, maybe on some other meta thread, when the occasion will appear again. The community attitude with respect to amateur math is a very important issue to be discussed, I think.

    -- Yemon, you closed no longer than yesterday an interesting question about determinants, without even looking at it! For God's sake, can't we be more cool and relaxed on this forum, and not click "delete" just for the pleasure of doing it.

    -- And an attack against myself :) I'd like to apologize here for a few stupid things that I hastingly said on some other occasions (..) with of course the promise that I will improve.
    • CommentAuthorvoloch
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2013 edited
     

    People posting links to their papers and asking for feedback, be they amateurs or not, are generally viewed as spammers in the sense that their primary purpose is to advertise their work rather than ask a specific mathematical question.

    • CommentAuthorYemon Choi
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2013
     

    Teo: salt and pepper aside (no Dijon?)

    IIRC, I did vote to close a question about determinants without thinking about it properly, that I admit: see here. But that wasn't yesterday. Is there another instance that you have in mind?

    • CommentAuthorTeo B
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2013
     
    @Yemon, sorry for the confusion, it's that one, 3 days ago indeed. Closing that question was a crime against science. Unexcusable.

    Now seriously, listen, we should be more careful.. There are plenty of shy users, not very much/not yet into math (or perhaps well into math as well), do you think they can easily digest a "read FAQ"-type answer to their very first question? That's the kind of thing that can turn one completely away from math! Or at least from this forum. And it would be such a pity, no.

    Anyway, now I'll go to sleep.. nice question that you asked today, I was prepared to post a "read-FAQ" type comment to it, unfortunately after reading it I didn't know at all the answer, so I said that maybe it's not the good moment! Maybe next time :)
    • CommentAuthorabatkai
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2013
     
    I think what voloch said is really important here. Questions about how good is a specific journal are quite borderline here even without these links. The texts "And now, I have been trying to get readers." and " then I might want to hear whether my result is new." clearly show the OP wants us to evaluate his/her results.
  9.  
    Incidentally, Shinya also might still need help verifying correctness of his proof of the Riemann Hypothesis, see the exchange at http://www.usenetmessages.com/view.php?c=science&g=453&id=489962&p=0 . In any case, I do not regard Shinya's post on MO as spam, it just does not belong to this forum. In my mind, all questions of the type "I proved X, where should I publish the proof?" or "I proved X, could somebody check my proof?" do not belong to MO (or, at least, to MO that I would be willing to be a part of).
    • CommentAuthorTeo B
    • CommentTimeJan 10th 2013
     
    @voloch, abatkai, Misha, thank you for the explanations, now I carefully re-read the original question and indeed, without even knowing more about it (cf. links signaled afterwards by Yemon) there were a few bizarre things in that post, that I missed on the spot, as being a rather unexperienced user.

    So this is not standing anymore as a proposal to reopen the question, or to further discuss about it.. sorry for this, and thanks again for the explanations.

    Best.
  11.  
    I'm fine with this question being closed, but I disagree with it being closed as spam. Flagging something as spam has a much stronger effect than all other kinds of flags and comes with big loss in rep. So flagging something as spam is an extreme measure that should be restricted to pure spam. For consistency of language, closing something as spam should be done with great care. The OP did not make a look-at-my-paper!-post and did not advertise the content of his paper in any way.

    So I think this question should have been closed as off-topic.

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