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User xx is not letting their questions
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/48249/there-is-no-a-isomophism-between-them-closed
which have been rightfully closed as being inappropriate for MO and being a useless repeat, respectively, have the tag "commutative algebra" removed and replaced by the tag "tag removed". I attempted to explain that this was standard policy in my revision comments to the first one but they have not listened. Could a moderator please make the change and lock the question?
The easy solution is to lock the user. Then, this person won't be able to edit these questions any more.
Also, I am now flagging the questions as spam and hoping that others will do the same. Then they will be automatically deleted.
The second question is gone now, and I've flagged the first one as spam.
Here we go again: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/48267/linearly-independent-subsets-of-a-ultra-product
If these get flagged as spam and deleted sufficiently quickly, the poster will lose interest.
Kevin, it is not quite so bad - look at the edit history. There was a (fairly short) discussion in the comments and he was directed to math.SE. The question was closed (not deleted!) and the tag replaced by [tag-removed]. He then opened an identical question with some rants about this site and he replaced the [tag-removed] on his first question by the original tag. Once his second question was closed (again with some constructive feedback in the comments) and the [tag removed], he did the same with the second question. After yet another round of edit wars with tag replacement between the MO users and him people started flagging it as spam, which it clearly became at that point.
Ryan, I don't think "Calm down!" should be interpreted as yelling, or as anger, on Kevin's part. Raising one's voice slightly, perhaps; but only in the way one would in a lecture in order to engender pause for thought.
And FWIW I think we could have handled the question in, erm, question a little better. Was it too easy for MO? Possibly (although when $k$ has large cardinality I am not immediately sure of the answer). Did the OP get upset & argumentative? Yes. Does this mean we needed to exacerbate his impression of a door being shut in his/her face or fingers? I think not.
+1 to Kevin's orginal "Calm Down", unless I'm seriously misunderstanding what happened here.
As far as I can tell, this user was in the right, but then effectively started trolling/spamming out of frustration.
If I'm completely missing something, I'd like to know. But otherwise, I'd like to email xx and ask him to please post his question again. I agree that he screwed up and behaved badly, but I also think the MO community screwed up a bit.
@Anton: the [tag-removed] discussion has happened several times in the past already. Let me just summarise my view on the benefits of judiciously removing tags from closed questions that are obviously inappropriate for this website.
If a question has been closed as inappropriate for this website, and stays closed, then it is unlikely to generate any answers. Its contribution to the content of MO is thus minimal. In view of that, I advocate a metaphorical sweeping of those questions into a corner so they don't take up the visual space and mental focus better allotted to other questions.
That said: when I made the proposal a few months back of using the [tag-removed] tag in this way, I did make the suggestions that users shouldn't re-tag as [tag-removed] blindly any question that is closed. My proposal mainly was intended as a way to filter out questions that obviously do not fit the purpose of MO, such as homework problems from introductory undergraduate courses. And I agree that questions which, pending some re-writing, may be re-opened as an on-topic thread should not have the tag removed.
Obviously, depending on the individual's implementation of this policy, some questions may be too hastily closed and with tags unnecessarily removed. But I think over-all this little bit of house-cleaning has made, at least, my experience using MO much more pleasant.
My reasoning had been precisely that an unanswered, closed question, espeically one that seemed homework-esque (which was my primary concern with it - though I can't see xx's original post, I recall there being numbering and an imperative "Prove that:") and inappropriate for MO (the user's first question certainly was, though I will admit all I personally working on was an inference that the second question was easy, from the comment(s) to that effect, the fact that it was paired with the first question, and the fact that it had been closed), would not be something someone searching for / following commutative algebra posts on MO would want to see.
For the record, I didn't vote to close (as I don't have that power, and it was already closed, and it would have been improper for me to do so anyway, not being able to judge the second question), and I didn't make the first change to tag-removed - I only noticed that xx had changed it back from Andrey Rekalo's edit, and in addition to my (then) opinion that tag-removed was the correct tag in this situation, I felt particularly annoyed that this new user would change it back without so much as asking in the comments what "tag-removed" meant, so I changed it back, and provided an explanation that, while certainly glossing over the subtleties of when tag-removed is used, should nonetheless have discouraged him from changing it again. After xx's second rollback without comment, I was a little more hotheaded than a silly issue like this warrants and posted on meta about it, and things snowballed from there.
I think I would agree that asking xx to post again and having everyone "Calm down!" a bit would be a fair course of action.
@WillieWong: I absolutely agree that it's a good idea to remove tags from questions for which those tags are not appropriate (your third point). Since questions which are completely off topic for MO don't have any appropriate tags, but are forced by the software to have a tag, it makes some sense to tag tag them as [tag-removed].
However, I (still) think its a bad idea for people to do things like add [tag-removed] to their ignored list or retag questions with [tag-removed] as a way of indicating that they are (at least from the point of view of MO) worthless. It is a fundamental confusion of the purpose of the tag (see below). Let me illustrate the kind of problems this can cause.
Somebody at some point accidentally created the tag [algebraic], a tag which should not exist because it confuses new users into thinking that they should use it, leading to questions tagged like this ([algebraic] and [geometry]). To prevent new users from using these tags that shouldn't exist, a moderator can merge [algebraic] into [tag-removed]. This is the intended use of the tag. But if you have added [tag-removed] to your ignored list, you will now be filtering out these questions.
Is it really necessary to tag questions as closed? A question being closed is not supposed to make it drop off the radar. If somebody fixes up a closed question, people should look at it and (maybe) vote to reopen. It's fine to close (and eventually delete) terrible questions, but I think it's unhealthy for the MO community to treat all closed questions as terrible. I feel like terrible questions are sufficiently infrequent that trying to come up with a way to filter them out (beyond simply closing, flagging, and/or downvoting them) causes more harm than good.
@Zev: The original question reads
Let $A$ be a commutative ring with unit, $I$ a infinite set.
1, prove that $\bigoplus_{i\in I} A$ can not be isomorphic to $\prod_{i\in I}A$ as A-module.
2, prove that $\prod_{i\in I} A$ has a linearly independent set with cardinality $\geq 2^{|I|}$
If we have proved (2), then (1) definitely is true.
so we want to show (2) is true.
I agree with your assessment that this is homework-esque in the way it is presented, and that in the presence of comments suggesting the questions are easy, it's natural to not think about it too hard. (Incidentally, I was suggesting that the first, strictly easier question is hard). I also completely agree that xx behaved in a way that would piss off any reasonable person. But remember that he is new to MO and (as he made clearer later) English is not his first language. He was certainly at least as frustrated as anybody else. I can completely understand how this thing blew up, but I'm not sure how to make it less likely to happen in the future. My feeling is that (automatic, or close to automatic) retagging of closed questions with [tag-removed] contributes to the danger of this happening, but doesn't sufficiently pay for this danger with other benefits.
Anyway, I'll email xx, point him to this meta thread, and ask him to repost (a rephrased version of) his question.
@Anton:
I admit I wasn't aware of the original philosophy of the [tag-removed] tag. Thank you for your clarification in your third paragraph. (The problem is that I interpreted the phrase "tag-removed" as "tag removed from question" not "tag removed from the list of tags".) Also, I am pretty sure the practice of removing tags and retagging [tag-removed] predates my (explicit) proposal of it on MO (which was unfortunate that you didn't see). Now, given that the practice is already somewhat widespread, would it be advisable to create a new-tag for this purpose? Unfortunately, with the character number limit, I can't think of a tag name that will help (in terms of being clear to sods like me of its intended purpose).
I would also like to point out the third paragraph of my comment above already pre-empted the last paragraph of your comment. I wasn't quite sure whether you intended to address that last paragraph to me or to the general audience.
Also, I disagree with the claim
My feeling is that (automatic, or close to automatic) retagging of closed questions with [tag-removed] contributes to the danger of this happening, but doesn't sufficiently pay for this danger with other benefits.
I don't think the existence of one isolated incident justifies your assessment. I maintain that as long as we limit the re-tagging to [tag-removed] to cases for which
If somebody fixes up a closed question, people should look at it and (maybe) vote to reopen.
cannot apply (in the sense that the purpose of the original question is so far off-base that any reasonable revision might as well be a new question), your perceived danger is, I think, a lot less real than you make it out to be.
I've emailed xx, suggesting he repost the question with something like the following phrasing:
Can the I-fold direct sum be isomorphic to the I-fold direct product for infinite I?
Let $A$ be a non-zero commutative ring with unit, and $I$ an infinite set.
Can $\bigoplus_{i\in I} A$ be isomorphic to $\prod_{i\in I}A$ as an $A$-module?
I believe the answer is no, but I've found it surprisingly difficult to prove. One natural way to do it would be to show that $\prod_{i\in I} A$ has a linearly independent set with cardinality $\geq 2^{|I|}$. Does anybody know how to do this?
Being new to MO does not explain anything.
I think it is not too much to expect anyone interested in participating to lurk a little bit for a while to try to see how the thing works and how users behave before jumping in---I know I did.
That is one of the reasons I am slightly annoyed by some questions written in the style of a 14 year old writing SMSs... Proper capitalization and punctuation, total lack of "?????", "!!!!!!" and LOLs, and so on are the norm here, and that can be seen simply by browsing the existing questions for 5 minutes. Maybe the FAQ could be edited to suggest watching how the thing works before jumping in (à la when in Rome...)? Lots of past friction with new users could have been avoided if they had taken the time to minimally understand local customs.
@WillieWong: Yes, I agree that the danger isn't very big, but my point is that the benefit is likely even smaller. Just leaving a terrible closed question alone is usually a more effective and efficient way to sweep it into the corner than retagging it (since retagging bumps the question). Just leaving bad questions alone is also much less offensive to the OP. Put yourself in the shoes of the OP: somebody edits or retags one of your posts in a way that clearly indicates that they believe it's worthless. In this situation, you'd feel pretty crappy, and depending on your demeanor, you might get into a fight. And for what? So that the question isn't an eye-sore for somebody? It still ends up being an eye-sore since it gets bumped.
Even if there's little danger of starting trouble (like this time) or of misjudging a good question as poor, there is a very real danger of leaving a very bad taste in the mouth of the OP. Even if it's not a person we want to come back to MO, it just doesn't seem worth it. (I'm a bit worried that this has gotten too abstract. Like I said above, I agree with removing tags in some situations. I just think that it should be quite a lot more hands off than it is now.)
Mariano: Being new to MO does not explain anything. ...
Yes, I kind of agree with this. But the language points here were subtle (e.g. the use of the imperative "prove that" as opposed to "I'd like to prove that" makes it look like a homework question) and I wouldn't expect a non-native English speaker to easily pick that up from watching. The language in the first question was actually quite reasonable and the question was interesting. What would you have expected xx to pick up that would have made this situation better? Before things heated up with the retag war, xx was actually behaving in a perfectly reasonable way. Even after things had gone south, he made some attempts to get some reasonable discussion. For example, in this post, he says "if some one like to vote me down, please give me your reason". Perhaps he could have come to meta, but that's not something a you'd easily pick up from lurking.
My point is simply that this user was not behaving in a crazy way.
@Anton:
Put yourself in the shoes of the OP: somebody edits or retags one of your posts in a way that clearly indicates that they believe it's worthless.
For such thin-skinned individuals that a re-tag will cause offence, do you not think that the closure of their questions will be provocative enough? Since I am not advocating retagging or editing questions that are still "live", your argument has a bit of strawman feel to me.
The only difference between re-tagging and closure, in this context, is that the original posters can enter into an edit war by reverting the former, whereas only users with sufficiently high reputation can vote to re-open.
It still ends up being an eye-sore since it gets bumped.
For the record, in my original comment in some other thread about this (which you most likely missed, since this discussion should've, ideally, happened back then), I did note that for minimum disruption, the retagging, when appropriate, should ideally be done by the person casting the final vote. And I never advocated digging through old, closed questions just to retag them and make them resurface.
I'm a bit worried that this has gotten too abstract.
Well, not sufficiently empowered to see the original thread and the discussions there, and being woefully ignorant of commutative algebra, I cannot, and never intend to, assess the merit of the specifics here. My comments in this thread has all been deliberately aimed in the abstract.
That said, I see that I stand very little chance of convincing you of my position, perhaps we should just agree that we've reached an impasse. (And no, I won't challenge you to a battle of wits.)
I always use the imperative for my background. Does that make it look like homework? "Recall..."
@Harry: I think the difference is that, if your advisor says to you, "Recall such and such and such", and you don't actually really recall, you can just nod your head along while he explains things to you. But if you just continue to nod your head after he says "Prove such and such and such" and looks at you expectantly, he'll begin to wonder if you are actually listening to Walkman.
Indeed. "Recall" is shorthand for "I don't really trust you to know this, but don't want to insult you by coming out and saying as much."
@Willie: Though I think we do disagree about something, I really don't think it's the vast chasm we've turned it into. In particular, I agree with you on this:
I maintain that as long as we limit the re-tagging to [tag-removed] to cases for which
If somebody fixes up a closed question, people should look at it and (maybe) vote to reopen.
cannot apply (in the sense that the purpose of the original question is so far off-base that any reasonable revision might as well be a new question), your perceived danger is, I think, a lot less real than you make it out to be.
I don't think this applied in this case.
I think the thing that I have a problem with is the connection between removing tags and closing. Removing inappropriate tags (and/or adding appropriate tags) is a good thing, and closing questions is often a good thing, but I feel like tying closing to removal of tags makes people more likely to retag thoughtlessly.
I'm willing to keep spewing my thoughts on the matter so long as I think there's a chance of producing more clarity, but you might well be right that there's just not much more progress to be made for now.
I completely agree with
I feel like tying closing to removal of tags makes people more likely to retag thoughtlessly.
I think, maybe, the problem is the following: while tags for inappropriate questions should be removed, it shouldn't be removed until the community has determined the question is inappropriate, and one of the necessary conditions is that it be closed. (So for better of for worse, the removal of tags [not retagging to more suitable categories] is necessarily tied to closure of question.) Unfortunately the suggestion that "Closed, inappropriate questions should have tags removed" may have led to the habit "closed questions should have tags removed" since, I think, a rather large number of closed questions are inappropriate, and some of us started operating on autopilot with regards to this.
Sounds like something about statements and their converses can be said....
Hm. It seems I am one of the ones who has been retagging closed questions with [tag-removed] a teeny little bit too automatically. I'll at least give it a bit more thought from now on.
But, after reading Anton's explanation of the original meaning of [tag-removed], I wonder if we should have a different tag available for tagging inappropriate questions? I suggest [tag-none], with the understanding that no question with this tag should ever have another tag at the same time.
Finally, I am beginning to lose track of what is the current consensus on various policy issues. I thought the [tag-removed] policy was agreed upon, but now I learn that it was not. The whole meta site is beginning to get way too big to search efficiently. I wonder if one could add a faq to the site, or a best practices page, reachable from the top of the meta page, with a summary of what is agreed upon, and what is still somewhat contentious, together with links to the relevant discussions? The biggest problem I see with this proposal is that such a page might be quite hard to put together. A wiki might be better, so more people can contribute, but it adds to the total complexity of the site.
@Harald: We never agreed on it. I thought it was a good idea, but I remember that Anton has always been against it.
If someone could ask Andrew Stacey how to install the "advanced search" module for Vanilla, that might be a good idea. The nForum's search is substantially better than the search here because he installed it a few months ago.
xx didn't seem interested in reposting the question (but seems to have happily continued using MO), so I've asked it myself.
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