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Etiquette: Requiring identity before answering

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    No one has responded to a certain MO question which seems to me a reasonable question and I am considering providing one. Probably the question is not a homework problem, but it could be, and I am discouraged by a previous post of the MO.

    Would it violate MO etiquette for me to post something like this:


    1. Write an answer if you are not a student taking a course in the subject of your question, or

    2. give you hints if you are a student and this is not a homework problem.

    If you do not want to identify yourself on MO, send me an email.

    EDIT 8 Feb 2011: I edited out the identifying information. This may make some responses incomprehensible.
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    I feel this is a bit too, err, hostile. I'd suggest more along the lines of "I'm hesitant to answer as this looks like a homework question. Perhaps you could provide more motivation for your question, or explain the background?"

    Asking someone to "identify themselves" seems to have the wrong tone.

    • CommentAuthoran_mo_user
    • CommentTimeFeb 5th 2011 edited
     
    To give one data-point:

    As somebody who is anonymous on MO, main and meta, I merely wanted to say that I would not hesitate to locally 'reveal my identity'
    (in particular, non-publically, e.g. email) if asked to do so; certainly, if there is a good reason (as is the case here), and most likely even without.
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    I thought it was an interesting question and would have appreciated seeing an answer, regardless of the behaviour of the questioner in a different post.

    EDIT 8 Feb 2011: Removed discussion of the question originally linked to, as it is no longer relevant.
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    @George Lowther: I don't know the definition of totally finite compact measure space and it is not convenient where I am to download Fremlin's book. Certainly the result is false for $I^{\Aleph_1}$. My proof uses metrizability of the codomain, but I have not thought about whether that is necessary. I cannot find your email address through googling as you don't put it on your blog page or on your arXiv papers. If you are interested, email me and I'll send you a sketch of my proof. johnson AT math tamu edu

    Certainly nothing like this is standard in measure theory books. It might be in Diestel-Uhl, but I don't have access to that book here.
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    Removed post: content is no longer relevant.
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    Now I'm unsure whether to post an answer to this question myself. I found it interesting, and took some time to find out whether it is true or not.

    (Edited out content which is no longer relevant)
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    George know because of offline discussion, but others do not, that I found a mistake in my proof. Anyway, it is inconceivable that the question is a homework problem, so I would have no qualms about answering even if I have some doubt about the OP from the OP's prior post.
    • CommentAuthorarex
    • CommentTimeFeb 7th 2011
     

    The original question of whether or not requiring identity before answering violates MO etiquette remains relevant.

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    Yes, good point, Arex. I will simply delete my references to other threads.
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    *Requiring* people to identify themselves seems hardly appropriate, or, as Scott Morrison wrote earlier, has the wrong tone. On the other hand, I would like to see regular MO users promote the idea (e.g. in comments) that it is in the posters' best interest to strive to follow up when asked to reformulate their questions in more details. I think that in most cases, you can ask for reformulations that are helpful without having the user divulge anything too personal.

    My personal policy is to abstain from answering a question that is poorly formulated, even if I think I know what the question means, precisely because I may very well misread the intent and I would rather avoid spending my time in vain and embarrassing myself. To me, that includes questions where the poster's background is unclear, but relevant to formulating an answer.
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    I'd say there's nothing wrong with setting a personal rule not to answer any questions asked by anonymous users. If this becomes a trend, this is a natural incentive (as opposed to an enforced rule, as in your previous thread) for users to use their real names. I'm not sure a question's comment thread is to place to pursue this cause, but you could certainly publicize your point of view in your bio.

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