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It's easy to spot homework questions by Indian students: they are using Rs. as currency. This is no more of a problem than homework questions in general, of course; and thinking at the number of people living in India, it is no strange that many come here. Still, I have the impression that there are more Indians than the usual share in other similar sites. Does anybody know why this is the case?

(As I stated in the subject, it's just a curiosity - for example, I don't remember homework questions using euro...)

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    $\begingroup$ I don't see where this discussion is going... The habits of certain cultures aren't really going to concern meta unless they are interfering with the site somehow (and it sounds like it isn't at the moment.) At the very most someone is eventually going to suggest derogatory things about the students asking the questions, and that doesn't seem like a fun place to be. $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Sep 30, 2013 at 13:35
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    $\begingroup$ I don't mean to invalidate the question (I understand the curiosity) but it seems a little like "small talk" with no goal in sight :( $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Sep 30, 2013 at 13:37
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    $\begingroup$ the goal would be to understand if and how much (math)SE is international. I concede it's silly, but I found it difficult to spot other nationalities $\endgroup$
    – mau
    Sep 30, 2013 at 14:09
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    $\begingroup$ Oh, that question is a lot more interesting! :) I wonder if the stackexchange can pipe IP data through a map of the world and see how much volume is coming from where! $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Sep 30, 2013 at 14:13
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    $\begingroup$ I'm seeing these, too. They can be spotted easily. Also because they use the word "doubt" as a synonym of "question" or "an unclear point". Joriki (IIRC) brought this up once, and it was discussed and explained as their custom. But why would it be a problem, if we get several questions originating from India? $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Sep 30, 2013 at 19:03
  • $\begingroup$ IIRC was RC (good memory!). There is a question from 2011 on "doubt". meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/3200/… . @JyrkiLahtonen $\endgroup$
    – zyx
    Oct 1, 2013 at 18:00

2 Answers 2

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Data is thin. Of the undeleted questions,

euros 16 hits
Rs. 20 hits
rupee(s) 16 hits
pence 2 hits
dollar 317 hits

There may be references to roubles, zlotys etc from olympiad questions.

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    $\begingroup$ Questions coming from Zimbabwe would be easily noticeable since they would routinely involve prices in [100, 000,000,000,000](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…) Zimbabwean dollars. According to [Wikipedia](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar#Hyperinflation), by December 2008 annual inflation was estimated at 650 million googol percent ($6.5×10^{108}$ percent). $\endgroup$
    – Georges Elencwajg
    Sep 30, 2013 at 21:39
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the link, @GeorgesElencwajg. While obviously off topic, I found that article to be fascinating! $\endgroup$
    – The Chaz 2.0
    Oct 1, 2013 at 2:12
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    $\begingroup$ Glad you liked it, @The Chaz. And it would be hard to deny that my comment was indeed completely off-topic... $\endgroup$
    – Georges Elencwajg
    Oct 1, 2013 at 2:16
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I propose two easy explanations, neither of which has been ruled out yet.

  1. The number of Indian homework questions is not unexpectedly large, but for some reason you have noticed and remembered the ones that you ascribe to Indians.

    (A variation on this explanation is that you are more likely to ascribe homework questions to Indians even on thin or missing evidence.)

  2. Supposing the claimed effect is actually real (which hasn't been demonstrated) There could be a lot of Indian homework questions because there are a lot of Indians.

Until these null hypotheses have been investigated, and the supposed preponderance of Indian homework questions actually shown to exist, it would be a methodological error to try to answer your question. We might as well discuss the reasons why purple ostriches post so many questions about combinatorics.

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  • $\begingroup$ Dammit, did my purple ostriches get their beaks on keyboards again? $\endgroup$
    – Isaac
    Sep 30, 2013 at 17:52
  • $\begingroup$ @Isaac They were trying to peck the cat on your keyboard. $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Oct 1, 2013 at 14:29

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