tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (MO policy toward "links-as-answers")

François G. Dorais comments on "MO policy toward "links-as-answers"" (19835)

François G. Dorais — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 12:50:51 -0700

For additional context, Charles is talking about the review feature that will be available on MO 2.0. (See also meta.SO.)

Some answers and questions automatically get flagged as potentially low-quality for a variety of reasons, such as an answer that consists mostly of links. The courses of actions for the review process are Looks Good, Edit, Delete and Not Sure. The last defers to the issue to other volunteers, the other three options have obvious meanings. If you volunteer, you get presented a series of flagged posts and you must select one of the four options to see the next post in the queue.

Asaf Karagila comments on "MO policy toward "links-as-answers"" (19834)

Asaf Karagila — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 12:27:17 -0700

Digital Object Identifier.

Like a particular number that will forever be associated with the digital copy of the paper. Sort of like a DNA.

Charles Staats comments on "MO policy toward "links-as-answers"" (19831)

Charles Staats — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 12:11:41 -0700

I know this is basically irrelevant, but what does DOI mean?

François G. Dorais comments on "MO policy toward "links-as-answers"" (19829)

François G. Dorais — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 12:05:47 -0700

I think one of the main motivations behind this policies is link rot. We already had issues with that here. Some links are more stable than others, e.g. references to an article by DOI are likely to outlive MO, but personal blogs and similar resources are much more unstable. This is much less of a problem for MO than for facebook.SO for example, but it's not a bad idea to review those.

[Edit: Added link after Charles's comment below.]

Charles Staats comments on "MO policy toward "links-as-answers"" (19827)

Charles Staats — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 11:24:50 -0700

One thing I have notices in the MO 2.0 sandbox is that the software is designed to discourage, although not prevent, links-as-answers. (This is offered as I criterion for recommending an answer for deletion, if you click on the "review" link.) While I personally think this is a reasonable policy, I have not seen it suggested or enforced anywhere on MO, so far as I can recall. I also think that links-as-answers, while far from ideal (since, e.g., the link can break), can often be useful, and recommending them for deletion on these grounds alone is questionable.

Is there a MO policy toward links-as-answers? Do we want to accept what appears to be the official SE policy, or make ours different?