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I think it's time to close Undergraduate Level Math Books. It wasn't a really great question in the first place, and I've seen it pop up enough times that it's a nuisance.
As I recall, the consensus the last time we discussed a question like this is that there's no reason to have resources from all these different subjects in one thread; if people want to know about good books for subject X, they should post a separate question about subject X. Right?
As I recall, the consensus the last time we discussed a question like this is that there's no reason to have resources from all these different subjects in one thread; if people want to know about good books for subject X, they should post a separate question about subject X. Right?
Yup, that was precisely what I had in mind when I posted this.
Agreed with Harry; at nearly 100 posts, it is no longer easily surveyable.
And this was the other thing I had in mind.
High fives all around =D!
Agreed with all of the above. Only one vote to close missing now.
Ah, but would you have checked the new answers if I hadn't called for closure?
@Jeremy: but this is what blogs are for, if anything, not MO. I reread http://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/bleg-book-recommendations-for-an-undergraduate/ regularly for precisely this reason.
I think Qiaochu is right, and that a great idea for an internet forum of some sort would be a discussion of math books at all levels. (To what extent does such a thing already exist?) In part it's because this is a topic of legitimate interest to so many (all?) students and practitioners of mathematics that makes it impractical to have this function as a single question on MO.
It's no longer possible to add useful answers to this question (as there are too many!) and it's unclear whether this question would be "allowed" by modern standards -- far too broad. As it's been popping back to the front page fairly frequently, we've decided to close it.
That makes it sound like "popping back to front page" is a bad thing, but isn't that the desirable feature of MO that the question that generates a lot of responses is featured on the front page? Like in so many situations before, I feel that there is a dogged willingness on a part of a small group of active users to arbitrarily impose their preferences upon the larger community. That view is further supported by responses on this thread:
Harry didn't like the question in the first place.
Robin commented that the question is "not easily surveyable": that applies to many popular questions, so isn't that something that should be decided upon as a policy (say, should we automatically close questions with more than 2 pages of answers) rather than given as an excuse?
Qiaochu wrote: "As I recall, the consensus the last time we discussed a question like this is that there's no reason to have resources from all these different subjects in one thread; if people want to know about good books for subject X, they should post a separate question about subject X. Right?" Regardless of how many people are even aware of that discussion, isn't it a bit disingenuous to apply it retroactively? So now the people who wanted to answer this particular question or to know the answers (and clearly, there are enough of them) are prevented from doing so. Moreover, if someone starts a similar question in the future, it could justifiably be closed on the grounds of being a duplicate.
Further comments from Qiaochu and Pete about blogs leave me wondering: why kick away from MO a question that many people provably care about, especially since it is not clear that there is a better (or another) medium for it? In this connection, I am reminded of Andrew Stacey's unsuccessful* attempt to relocate "Counterexamples in algebra" to n-Lab page
*He himself and many other people, including myself, complained about the associated annoyances.
(continued) I am going to further state a few things that are fairly obvious to me, but perhaps are not so clear to people who have been at MO from the very beginning (everyone on this thread save jeremy?).
New users arrive to MO all the time. They were not around back in October or December of 2009, or whenever you, guys, first saw some question and perhaps got sick of seeing it in on the front page. They may be genuinely interested in learning about, and sometimes, making a valuable contribution to older questions (after all, great initial questions may be in the large measure responsible for the success of MO). It would be one thing to have a clearly enunciated policy that a question is closer after a certain time (say, 3 months), or after a certain number of views, or once it gets a certain number of answers. But from reading the official policy stated in FAQ, I got a distinct impression that such contributions are considered a part of the system and, in fact, encouraged: cf "badges" for answering a question more than 60 days old with 5 up votes, or question with at least (Large Number) answers, or so many views. Thus the efforts to suppress what seems to be the normal functioning of the system by a few old-timers with the tools to do so can certainly be perceived as self-serving, capricious, and even dictatorial (that may not be how you view it yourself, but then, the community perception is worth something, too). I personally find many such efforts in poor taste (not pointing fingers at anyone...) and distinctly unwelcoming to new or less active users, especially when accompanied by self-aggrandization. If the purpose of MO had been to serve a few well-connected people and never mind how everyone else feels, then godspeed to you! But if, and I hope I am right here, the goal is to provide high quality interaction environment for mathematicians, it is very short-sighted. There are some true experts on MO who have only answered a handful of questions: are we to believe that they should be treated with contempt because they don't have enough "rep"? Likewise, I am a bit put off by not-so-subtle efforts to redirect traffic to n-Lab or sbseminar, or to pitch one's contributions there. I understand that initially, active MO participants were a small group with shared background and all this seems perfectly natural to them because that's how they operate anyway (I exclude Wikipedia because it de facto became the canonical source of definitions and statements of theorems). But once again, when many more people join, this "old boy network" phenomenon sometimes gets in the way of constructive interaction.
I, along with a few other "outsiders", have made similar observations on meta before (they were politely ignored, for the most part); if anyone is interested, I'll post the links.
Could someone care to tell me if I am an insider or an outsider, an old-timer or an arriviste? It's getting a bit uncomfortable on this fence here...
@VP: The annoying thing is that questions like this keep getting bumped back up to the top by new users with 1 reputation. It lowers the signal to noise ratio on the front page, and it's annoying when a new user has gone around dredging up old big-list questions. I think that new users should not participate in these big-list threads without participating in the main part of the site.
I don't get the impression that most of these new users answering these big-list questions are experts. Most of them don't use their real names, and they often only answer one or two community-wiki questions.
As far as the "old boy network" phenomenon, I think that the difference here is that anyone can come here on meta and discuss it with us (including you, and anyone else who is active on meta). The people active on meta may have a lot of sway over the policies of the site, but that's because they're the only ones who participate in the decision making.
But if, and I hope I am right here, the goal is to provide high quality interaction environment for mathematicians
What kind of interaction, and what level (or "profession-type") of mathematicians? Most of the high-quality interacting I do with mathematicians involves conferences and beer. It's not clear, though, that this high-quality interaction helps me fix technical lemmas or fill in worrisome gaps - which is my own preferred use for MO as a "client" of the site. That's not to say that "my way is the only way" or any such nonsense, but I thought I should pipe up as a non-moderator, non-ex-Berkeley, non-high-flying-research-whizz, etc.
I agree with the closing of this question. I suppose that's exactly what you'd expect from an "insider". Anyway, I'll try to explain why. It's not because the question kept popping up on the home page, and it's not because I don't care about people who are new to MO. It's because I think leaving the question open does some harm. If it were asked now, I think it would be closed without much fuss. The question was asked at a time when we were still feeling out what MO is good for. Though it's true that MO has the goal of being a high quality interaction environment for mathematicians, it is more specifically meant to be an environment for research(ish) interaction and an environment for very focused questions. MO is not math twitter, math facebook, a math blog, a math encyclopedia, or math reddit. I don't think that any of those things are bad, but I think it's extremely valuable to have a place on the internet dedicated almost exclusively to precise, mostly research(ish) Q&A, and MO is really good at being that place. I firmly believe that the site will be maximally useful if it just does this one thing well at the expense of being a place for mathematicians to hang out and chat about whatever.
To that end, I think it's important to close questions which are out of line with that goal, especially if they are very active. A popular fluffy question not only annoys the "regulars" or the "insiders" who have been around for a while, it also gives newcomers an inaccurate picture of what MO is supposed to be. Hopefully this addresses VP's point 4: "why kick away from MO a question that many people provably care about, especially since it is not clear that there is a better (or another) medium for it?" Because it actually interferes with people using MO for its intended purpose.
Generalities aside--I think it's always best to look at the specific question rather than try to apply some cookie-cutter explanation--I don't think this question is worthwhile to have on MO, and I think it is well-addressed by other mediums. Aside from annoying regulars and sending the wrong message to newcomers, it just isn't a useful resource to have on MO. Some evidence:
Regarding the "old boy network" question, I'm really not sure what to say. It's true that the more you contribute to MO, the more say you have in how it functions, but that's perfectly reasonable. It sounds like you're suggesting there's some kind of secret cabal with unsavory intentions controlling MO from a back room.
I don't see the problem in redirecting people to other sites when MO isn't meant to serve their purpose, or when those other sites contain useful information. I don't understand the difference between people linking to sbseminar/nLab and wikipedia. Can you provide an example of such links somehow interfering with constructive interaction? As far as I know, people simply link to whatever resources they like. There are also a handful of links in the FAQ; if you have some other site that MO users are likely to find useful, I'll happily add it.
I, along with a few other "outsiders", have made similar observations on meta before (they were politely ignored, for the most part); if anyone is interested, I'll post the links.
Yes, I'd like to see the links if it's not too much trouble. For what it's worth, I've never met most of the people I think of as extremely valuable contributors here on meta.
Here are some pointers (look for the named contributors). I apologize for not making more precise links: the search/linking system on meta could use some improvements, I've spent much time even as it is.
Stephen Griffeth, VP, Ilya Grigoriev
gilkalai, VP, John Stillwell, Emerton
Ironic Observer, Mariano, Douglas Zare
Several people I respect also left comments on MO itself, but declined to follow through on meta.
Pete Clark, Ilya Grigoriev, Mariano, Noah Snyder, Gil Kalai, and Andy Putman are all pretty active on meta.
I find myself losing the thread of this discussion. What are we talking about?
VP doesn't think you're a member of the "old boy" club on meta.
But in all seriousness, I think (but I'm not sure) that VP posted a bunch of posts where he thinks that "outsiders' " opinions were ignored (because Anton asked to see some examples).
@VP: I would like to note that the user "ironical observer" was a troll.
@Andy: I agree that the situation is not ideal, but I think it is something like a local maximum. Making it harder for everyone to close questions means that genuinely off-topic questions or spam would take longer to get removed. Increasing the amount of reputation necessary to vote to close (assuming we could do this) would skew the voting even more towards the "old boy network" (such as it is).
For now, besides voting to reopen I think the ideal course of action is to keep starting meta threads for borderline questions and abstain from voting until a consensus has been reached on meta. At least, that's what I've been trying to do.
Thanks, now I know what's going on. Yes, I agree that the current setup makes it too easy for a question to get quickly closed even when the majority of the voters want it to remain open. Having a question get closed and then reopened (and sometimes reclosed!) is a lot of unnecessary drama.
I gather though that we are stuck with our current platform for the forseeable future, so however tempting it may be, it doesn' t seem to be productive to propose "rule changes" that cannot yet be implemented. Brainstorming on what we could do with the current system, I came up with the following idea: vote-trading. That is, if I see a question that I like but for whatever reason feel is in danger of being closed, I leave as a comment: "I cast a vote against closure." Then, the next person who would have voted to close, instead of doing so, leaves a comment saying "I vote to close, cancelling Pete's vote" or something to that effect.
Among other things, a certain amount of "honor" is necessary to pull this kind of thing off, and it brings some people's votes out into the open. But it might be worth a try...
@Noah: I'm not sure; perhaps we should try out various approaches and see which turns out to be best.
I see that by responding to Anton's request to give the sources I simply wasted a lot of time: it is summarily dismissed with the bratty attitude, "Wait, I'm an outsider? Lolz!" (should I be surprised?) As Andy remarked, it is frustrating that a small clique of people makes very consequential decisions, in spite of other respected contributors cautioning against it and presenting rational reasons (please, read the links). It is further frustrating how non-transparent the "voting" system is, even for the "insiders": when the veil of secrecy is lifted, people are abhorred: cf Scott's and Anton's reaction to revelations that some OBN members simply chose a random reason for closing questions. In nearly each instance I quoted, a certain view was expressed, and either casually dismissed, politely ignored, or given only lip service: that makes it, by definition, an outsider view. The fact that people I quoted have been posting on meta does not make them "insiders"; indeed, in at least one case, all the posts that I've seen so far were expressions of exasperation.
I am going to say this again: there is a huge disconnect in how MO presents itself publicly, e.g. in the article of Anton, Scott and Ravi Vakil in the Notices or in FAQ policies ("A “bad question” is one which is either irrelevant to mathematicians or one where it is unclear what constitutes an answer"), and how it functions in reality, i.e. subject to the whims of 5 high "reputation" users with often unreasonable attitudes (Example: "I am annoyed by seeing this question on the front page, hence I am going to prevent anyone else from contributing to the answers") or based on idealistic perceptions of what MO should be according to a few well-connected insiders. As I mentioned before (2nd comment in this thread), it is one thing when certain things are done as a matter of policy (say, closing every old question) and completely another when they are perceived as interfering with the normal functioning of the system (ab)using the tools (closing the question for the precise reason that it is of interest to other people at this very moment).
I appreciate Anton stating his vision for MO, but I cannot reconcile it either with stated policies or with public actions (Example: "Math puzzles for dinner" - although it's a good question, in my opinion - got a special treatment). This is not helped by continuous pronouncements justifying many an action by the concern for the welfare of research mathematicians on MO: they come across as naive and idealistic (i.e. not grounded in reality) or self-serving and sanctimonious, I know that I am not alone in feeling this way (indeed, a view was expressed to me that "discussions on meta have as much to do with affirming a group identity as they do with making decisions"; see also the comments in the links). It is perhaps little wonder that, as Anton mentioned, many valuable MO contributors are nowhere to be seen on meta: who enjoys carrying water in a sieve?
I think that the discussion on meta is productive. Look at what happened with the VA affair. Our approach to closing questions has definitely changed since then.
Example: "I am annoyed by seeing this question on the front page, hence I am going to prevent anyone else from contributing to the answers"
I can assure you that's not how we (those of us who closed the question) came to our decisions. Unfortunately, there's no way on MO to completely remove a question from your view without blocking the whole tag. When pointless big-list threads keep getting bumped to the top like this one did, it's annoying for those of us who don't want to see it again, and it keeps legitimate mathematical questions off of the front page, where they're most likely to be answered.
If I may ask, VP, where do users such as myself fit into your (MO-) sociological schema?
I speak as someone who thinks that the MO question considered at the start of this thread was somewhat unfocused and didn't have much use for it, but who didn't vote to close it; who found the the "dinner party puzzles" question intensely annoying, and not what MO should be used for in my opinion; who was strongly in favour of reopening Michael Hardy's question on the MVT in mathematics eduaction; who steadily votes to close questions deemed too basic or ill-thought; who has voted to reopen a technical question on Banach spaces which was over-hastily shut; and who can hardly be thought of as part of the same mathematical or geographical clique as this cabal which you seem to postulate.
(Your last sentence also seems to infer a lot from an absence, but your feel for the unvoiced disquiet of others could well be better than mine, I guess.)
I guess there's no point in hiding the existence of the OBN anymore (thanks for outing us, VP!), and Yemon, there's no need to be coy. Checking the member rolls, you've been with us since 1996.
Have just realised what OBN stands for. Readers of "Private Eye" may, like me, associate the acronym with something more disparaging ;-)
This is an interesting discussion. I am sympathetic to VPs position, and frustration: he is trying to make a certain point, namely, that rather than being made according to prior policy, closing decisions are made by a group of people discussing them on meta. He does not dispute that reasons are given for closing in these discussions; his complaint is that the reasons given are typically not references to existing published policy (say on the FAQ page), but rather ad hoc reasons given at the time.
His most extreme example is "I am annoyed by seeing this question on the front page, hence I am going to prevent anyone else from contributing to the answers", and this doesn't seem to have been refuted: after making this complaint, Harry responded with the comment "When pointless big-list threads keep getting bumped to the top like this one did, it's annoying for those of us who don't want to see it again, and it keeps legitimate mathematical questions off of the front page, where they're most likely to be answered", which is precisely a rephrasing of what VP wrote, and is unhappy with.
Note further that, as VP remarked, the reason that this question is bumped to front page is that someone else was interested in it at the moment it was bumped, so this particular rationale for closing explicitly weights the interest of long-time/high-rep/meta-participating users over other users. Perhaps those who support the vote to close think that that's okay, but it would be good if they could at least address the issue, and explain why they think it's okay.
I would like to add that I very much like Pete's suggestion of "vote trading", and suggest that he begin a new thread explicitly devoted to this topic. This would make votes to close more of a vote. Even if it is not uniformly adhered to, I see no reason that those who support it can't at least agree to abide by it; already that will create some improvements in the system.
I think the correct statement is that high reputation users were not reading the new answers. Naturally, if you don't earn reputation from a certain type of question, then the people interested in that type of question have less reputation.
I think the key point here is that MO's intended audience is not people who only read and answer dicussion-y, big-list, or CW questions.
Any reputation over 3000 doesn't affect votes to close.