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It seems to me that the moderators and high rep users are viewed negatively by some newer (and some not so new) users. Is this something other people are noticing as well? If so do we want to change some policies, or are some people just always going to be annoyed by moderators?
Here is an example of what I'm talking about, where the user Idoneal says that the "math police will probably close it down".
Another example I had in mind was this question where the OP says " I hope the Gods of Math Overflow don't take too much offense". I may be misinterpreting the OP, in which case I apologize, but the term "Gods of Math Overflow" seems to me to indicate some annoyance.
P.S. I have nothing but good things to say about the moderators, in the very few instances I have interacted with them it has always been professional and fair. This is just something I noticed, and I wanted to ask if other people were getting the same vibe, or if it was just me (which it hopefully is).
As always in life, tasting some success goes to one's head. So when you have higher reputation, you might get cockier. You might start to speak in authoritative and dismissive tones. This is the explanation. This is a standard phenomenon in internet forums.
But, first things first. It is easier to explain the second example of " I hope the Gods of Math Overflow don't take too much offense". fpqc jumped the gun as usual, and the whole thing is clarified by the following comment:
Obviously, the "Gods of Math Overflow" which Minhyong is refering to is only one God, namely fpqc. – Martin Brandenburg
which turned out to be really prophetic and got 12 upvotes(so far) though it was not the most polite of comments.
Now, the first question you are referring to. Without the comment "math police will probably close it down", it perhaps would have been indeed closed down. Also it helps that the guy who asked the question is holding a good position.
In any case it is a very clear fact that higher reputation sometimes results in disproportionate cockiness and higher tolerance for it in the community. This was criticized by me in another post, wherein I pointed out silent encouragement to fpqc by the moderators. That post was deleted because of the tone. I was sorry to have used that type of tone but there was no other way to react. This had been going on for too long.
It is to be remembered that when you indulge a drama queen like fpqc, you are harming the atmosphere and you are being unfair to the mild mannered people who would not even speak up. What I mean is that fpqc is consistently nasty in this site for the last five months and he got away with it except for maybe three very short(1 or 2 day) bans. This is certainly because of the indulgent attitude of the other high rep users towards his style of bullying, especially towards newcomers.
Of course sometimes other high rep users are also unnecessarily nasty in dismissing or closing questions. But one has to start somewhere, and I used the top-cited example in meta discussions(it is one thread per week for fpqc, perhaps?)
Sometimes this sort of show-off of knowledge happens in answering also. For example recently fpqc posted a controversial answer to the question "“Homotopy-first” courses in algebraic topology". He was considerably nasty to anybody in the comment thread who dared to call out his behavior. And he got away with it scot-free.
@Pedant: I'm sympathetic to the points you make here, and agree with some of them, but I'd like to reiterate what's been said before: the moderators strongly feel that complaints about individual users are best handled privately. Our email addresses are easy to find: mine is scott@tqft.net, Anton is geraschenko@mathoverflow.net, Ben is bwebste@gmail.com. We're really trying hard here, and we're very willing to listen to suggestions and act on complaints.
@Pedant: I don't think that you have any right to speak on the tone of the discussion after that comment you posted earlier.
In fact, if it weren't for the fact that you're not a registered user, you would have been suspended earlier as well.
Anyway, I was not nasty in the "homotopy first" thread. I've undeleted my post so you can see for yourself. Certainly not "considerably nasty", anyway.
@Scott Morrison. I understand. For a start I suggest that you have a look at fpqc's drama in the comment thread to the question "“Homotopy-first” courses in algebraic topology". It was eventually deleted, but only after annoying everyone to full satisfaction. I hope since you are moderator you can see the deleted answer and hopefully from the database dump you can find any deleted comments.
I say nothing more here to keep in line with your guideline not to mention such things publicly.
There's no drama, you liar. I've undeleted it. See for yourself.
I think that your posts are worthless as well, Regenbogen.
In an effort to get back on track: there is a certain tone I read online, which although it accompanies some justifiabel complaints or grievances, reminds me of nothing so much as Dennis the Peasant. I'm not sure that's the intention.
Also, @Pedant, I'm not comfortable with using meta MO to level this kind of personal attack. I too get a bit exasperated by some (many?) things @fqpc says or apparently believes; but there seems no point in attempting an online version of a smackdown, at least not to the extent of a post getting -13 downvotes.
It is also not clear to me that @fqpc is disproportionately more unwelcoming towards "newbie questions" - there were a few recently which I think were asked in good faith, but deserved to be closed, or which simply weren't very good questions because they were (IMHO) of a "can someone explain X to me? kthxbye" ilk.
Anyway, to address your points, Pedant, I believe that a lot of the reason why there are so many threads about me is that I often test the boundaries, with mixed results.
Dear fpqc,
I understand your need for entertainment and acknowledge your ability to imagine up ways for the same. However don't you think that for comedy purposes it will be simpler to have a hobby of writing a satire column somewhere, or run a Howard Stern/ David Letterman type of show? When you think for a moment, don't you realize that a forum of poor mathematicians with nobody to challenge you is the wrong place to try comic antics? If you really believe you have comedy skills, you should go out and try it in the open arena.
-Pedant.
@Dr. Clark: Pedant made an extremely rude post earlier, and if it hadn't been for the fact that he does not have an account on MO proper, he would have been suspended as well, so please apply the same standards in dealing with both of us.
@Pedant: This wasn't a matter of me making a joke. Unlike yourself, I don't believe I've ever aimed profanity or direct insults at other members here, especially not without being provoked, so please don't lecture me on the tone of my posts.
Perhaps this is exactly the sort of abuse of power or cockiness Pedant is concerned about (or was aiming to produce), but I'm closing this thread. Could somebody please start a new one with Grétar's original post. This has turned into an "fpqc thread". meta.MO has had enough "fpqc threads" and I think they're worse than useless. A thread on meta which is directed at a particular person is likely to push that person into a corner where they cannot change their behavior "on principle", it wastes everybody's time and energy, and it makes it so that the moderators cannot effectively deal with the offending party without appearing to whole-heartedly support the opposing radical position. This is why we strongly feel that dealing with individual misbehavior should be done privately. If you want to personally attack another person, you're welcome to do it, but MO and meta.MO are in no way required to provide you with a platform do to so. I would think that emailing me directly would have a much lower energy barrier than complaining to the whole world.
For example recently fpqc posted a controversial answer to the question "“Homotopy-first” courses in algebraic topology". He was considerably nasty to anybody in the comment thread who dared to call out his behavior. And he got away with it scot-free.
I followed that thread, and I thought people were more nasty to him than he was to them. If you actually find anything nasty, please do email me about it.
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