Timeline for Should we allow moderators to unilaterally close questions?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
59 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 28, 2014 at 21:02 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Hurkyl I don't recall any users who left for that reason. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 20:57 | comment | added | user14972 | Users have left -- or haven't even bothered to begin participating -- in MSE because of overly lax moderation too and/or users pushing for too broad of a scope. It's very misleading to pretend that the set of contributors to MSE is a monotonically decreasing function of the level of moderation activity. If you really want testimonials, then I myself left MSE for a time when it looked like the old status quo was going to continue to be forced upon us. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 18:46 | comment | added | zyx | @Bill, there was also the disappearance of liberal "voices of reason" from the meta, such as JDH and (until very recently returning at a reduced participation rate) Matt E, and some high profile suspensions that allowed the pro-closing activists to face significantly less opposition than might otherwise have been the case. You (or 10k+) might be interested in the opinions expressed in my comments under this deleted question and its answer ( meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/9046/… ) about one of those cases. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 18:33 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | Correction, the percentages I quoted are even higher, since one should include Robin Chapman, who was, and surely would still be in the top 10 rep users. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 18:30 | comment | added | rschwieb | Dear @zyx oof, now this spans multiple sites and their metas... complicated. Right about the privacy issue too: I guess I should state that I'm only hoping for names which publicly announced that specific reason. I won't speculate on the rest, or ask anyone else to speculate. Regards. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 18:20 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @zyx I'm very sad, but not surprised, to learn of André's Nicolas's comment that his "interest in participating in MSE has been profoundly affected" (his emphasis). If he too leaves MSE then the top 3 rep users will all be gone, 40% of the top 10 rep users will have left at one point or another, and more than 60% will have ruminated about doing so. If that's not a wake up call to SE, then I imagine that nothing will be. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 18:02 | comment | added | zyx | Yes, that's the AC thread, and there were related events on Mathoverflow and its meta. @rschwieb | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 18:02 | comment | added | zyx | @rschwieb, see meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/11219/on-hold-question/… . Investigations of the kind you might be considering are obstructed by the phenomenon ( discussed at meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/10926/… ) that when a departure does take place there are calls (some sincere and others less so) to "respect privacy" and not talk about the event . | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 18:00 | comment | added | rschwieb | Dear @zyx Apparently I did miss it, but that's unsurprising considering I don't spend enough time in meta to notice such a trend. Is this the subject of your anecdote? Regards. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 17:56 | comment | added | rschwieb | @BillDubuque I don't doubt you on B.M.S. and I'll take your word on R.S. but any more than these two that you could mention would be helpful as I look into the matter. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 17:34 | comment | added | zyx | @rschwieb, in case you missed it, in the last 15 months or so the MSE meta has made a full blown transition to an adult kindergarten, changing its focus from optimizing the main site, to controlling and limiting user behavior. The shark-jumping moment was when a world expert on Wiles' work on FLT was unable to post an answer to a question about that work (re: AC) because some of the aggressive meta users found it more important to punish the poster of the question by closing it, and the expert was stuck having to debate the idiocy in meta. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 16:06 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @rschwieb It is obvious in most cases, e.g. read the linked post of Brian and peruse some of his relatively recent comments. Other significant contributors have left over poor SE-level moderation, e.g. Robin Chapman. In almost all cases, we would have lost no one had the site been managed by folks with more experience in such matters. Unfortunately no one with such experience has volunteered for the job. I have tried to coax some such users into doing so, but most say that they do not have the patience to deal with all of the nonsense that comes with managing a general-level math site. | |
| Feb 28, 2014 at 15:54 | comment | added | rschwieb | Dear @BillDubuque : We've shed contributors over the years, but quite often there isn't much information available on the specific reasons for leaving. Any sources you can provide that substantiate users leaving for "dissatisfaction with moderation" would be appreciated. I don't doubt that they exist, I just wonder about the true frequency of this reason. It does not seem like a major problem in the big scheme. Regards. | |
| Feb 27, 2014 at 16:36 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Hurkyl That such abuses of power, and failure to reach good compromises are causing MSE to lose many significant contributors is, imo, a quite pertinent footnote to add to the question. | |
| Feb 27, 2014 at 9:02 | answer | added | Martin Sleziak | timeline score: 4 | |
| Feb 27, 2014 at 2:44 | comment | added | user14972 | I posit that lamenting the alleged abuse of moderator power in specific instances is a rather poor way to start a discussion about the abstract question. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 16:47 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Asaf Again, my only interest here is to discuss the topic in the question. If you wish to discuss other matters could you please do so elsewhere. The thread is already derailed enough as it is by comments having little to do with the matter I focused on in the question. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 16:44 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | I never said that you did say anything about my previous comments; I said something about my previous comments. As for my inference, it may be false. But that's how I understand your behavior, and I'm not sure where my mistake is (except for the fact that the function which takes beliefs to behavior often has discontinuities, so to speak, and this might as well be one on my side, or yours). | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 16:42 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Asaf I did not say anything about your prior comments. And what you have inferred about my beliefs is not true. However, the prior comment is off-topic. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 16:35 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | Bill, it's easy to claim that any comment which is not on the most general abstract is immediately off topic. Yes, my comments are not on the topic of your question. They are about your attitude. You insist and refuse to accept that there is a possibility that the abstract question has a simple and agreeable answer. But the problem is that you and I (or you and the moderators) disagree on the implementation. As long as you keep ignoring this fact, you will always be disappointed by the "lack of constructive discussions on meta". And that is a shame. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 14:11 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Asaf The policy on meta has always been to abstract from the specifics. In any case, since this thread was long ago derailed by off-topic comments, I have given up any hope of discussing the actual issue I hoped to discuss. Long gone are the days when one can have constructive discussions on meta. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 7:34 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | Bill, my advisor, whom I think is a wonderful teacher and a lecturer often says that it is a good idea not to discuss the most general theorem, if it obscures understanding. The same holds here. You wish to discuss the "most general settings", and in that settings the answer is simple "No, it's not a good idea. Yes, there should be exceptions." But now we're stuck on what are the exceptions, and that cannot be discussed in generality because it's a case to case problem that the moderators have to deal with each time anew. The gray area is huge, and I find your insistence counterproductive. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 4:37 | comment | added | user14972 | The spammers do! More generally, any community decision will have some people disagree with it. I did not propose for moderators make decisions for the community, but to observe empirically what sorts of things the community has decided should be closed. I took great pains to state a criterion that can be applied generally, rather than in an ad-hoc fashion, and in a way that makes no reference to the implied topic of PSQ -- in fact, as I said with my initial comment, I do not even know if PSQ meet this criterion! | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 4:06 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Hurkyl The point is that there is no one in the community who questions the topicality of spam. But there are members of the community who disagree widely on the very subjective criteria used to judge how much (if any) effort needs to be shown when posing questions. As such, no individual should be making that decision for the entire community. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 4:01 | comment | added | user14972 | Anyways, my proposition is meant to be a direct, practical translation of the condition you suggested: "no question about the decision" -- if it is certain that the community will decide to close a question, then it is appropriate for a moderator to close it unilaterally. This practical criterion seems more appropriate than attempting to hash out closing criteria in a theoretical manner. I'm not sure if this intent was conveyed; your response made it sound like you had something very different in mind. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 3:58 | comment | added | user14972 | I can't figure out the relevance to divining your opinion of a statement of fact that one or more moderators have closed more than one question unilaterally. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 3:57 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Hurkyl I don't know why you cannot understand what was said quite clearly in the first sentence of my question. Don't expect any further replies from me when you make such absurd claims completely contrary to what I have written. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 3:51 | comment | added | user14972 | @Bill: Yes. You phrase words that sound absolute, and then ask the reader to decide for themselves how to resolve the "natural language ambiguities". Surely you can see how this would fail to clarify your actual opinion? | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 3:45 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | Again, no absolute proscription was proposed, as is plain as day to anyone who bothered to read the first sentence of my question. Please read the question before leaping to absurd inferences. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 3:29 | comment | added | user14972 | I pick this nit because it is directly relevant to the topic. Tossing out an absolute proscription against moderators closing threads is inappropriate when the central topic discussion is about the extent to which moderators should close threads. If that's the topic you actually want to discuss, then discuss it! | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 3:21 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @hurkly No, I expect any reader this far into the comments to have read what I wrote in the question, so that the context will clarify any potential natural language ambiguities. Please stay focused on the matter at hand, which has nothing to do with spam, as is clear to anyone who read the first sentence of my question. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 3:07 | comment | added | user14972 | Eh? Are you withdrawing "done by the community inasmuch as possible" then? Claiming that it's impossible for moderators to leave spam to the community? Are you sticking with a double standard that "done by the community inasmuch as possible" only applies when it suits your fancy? Something else? (note the previous comment was edited after the previous text was written) I'm pretty sure there is some disagreement in the community, even about spam -- e.g. I'm pretty sure the spammers would prefer their posts not to be deleted! | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 3:03 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Hurkyl Not true. Please read what I wrote in the question, where i explicitly mentioned "blatant spam" as an example of posts that could be handled unilaterally, since there is no disagreement in the community about such. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 3:01 | comment | added | user14972 | @Bill: "inasmuch as possible" is too far; you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It would entail, for example, moderators leaving spam for the community to deal with. | |
| Feb 26, 2014 at 1:13 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | To reiterate, my concern here is only with the general matter of unilateral closure - not with the details of any specific case. Given past history, I think it is very dangerous to let any single user make unilateral decisions on site content. This should be done by the community inasmuch as possible. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 17:13 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | [...] And it always bothers me in these discussions, that the focus was on the generality, which the majority of people already agreed upon, rather than the particularity which is where the disagreement lies. And the real issue was that all the ensuing discussions in comments of such threads were always thinly veiled discussions on the particular case, and rarely on the general case. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 17:12 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | Bill, while I do agree that in general unilateral closure is not a good idea, I also recall that we always had a very fundamental disagreement on what counts as "reasonable" in this aspect. This is like saying that murder is the worst thing you can do in any possible scenario; without taking into account that sometimes you kill someone because they are shooting at you (it's not good all of a sudden, but it's not as bad as premeditated murder). And I feel that there is a very strong consensus that indeed unilateral closure is bad; but the real issue is when it becomes acceptable. [...] | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 16:40 | history | edited | Bill Dubuque | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Feb 25, 2014 at 16:33 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Michael Because I had hoped that the newer moderators would not repeat the same mistakes of a few long gone. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 16:31 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Noah Wrong. As Brian emphasized his point is "the fundamental problem of one person preempting the community remains; another instance may be seen here." That shows an example closed on the first vote, by the same moderator. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 16:30 | comment | added | Michael Greinecker Mod | "It was the reason that I left the site last year." Is there a reason you came back after exactly one year? | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 16:28 | comment | added | Noah Snyder | For people who didn't click through, the recent thread linked is about a weird corner case, which is that moderators should not close migrated questions (even as the 5th vote!) outside of really extreme situations. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 16:19 | history | edited | Bill Dubuque | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:58 | comment | added | user98602 | @127.0.9.6 I don't see any reason given there that it should be declined. This appears to have been during SE1.0; perhaps it could be resuggested now? | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:58 | history | edited | Bill Dubuque | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:49 | answer | added | user14972 | timeline score: 9 | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:47 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | Related: meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/634/… and meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/11667/… | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:46 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak |
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| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:45 | history | edited | Bill Dubuque | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:44 | comment | added | user127096 | @Mike No, it's status-declined. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:38 | comment | added | user14972 | (if this topic is about whether or not there is a question that the fate of questions like the example is to be closed, then you should actually say so, rather than couch it as a question about the general policy regarding questions for which there is no question. Otherwise, I will continue to respond to what is actually written) | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:38 | history | edited | Bill Dubuque | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:32 | history | edited | Bill Dubuque | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:31 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Hurkyl Any such decisions should be made by the community, not by a single member using a unilateral, binding vote. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:27 | comment | added | user14972 | I propose, as general policy, that if there is no question that the fate of a question is to be closed, then its fine for it to be closed unilaterally. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:12 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | @Hurkyl The question is about general policy, not about the fate of any particular question. And, fyi, some members of the community strongly disagree with the homework/psq views held by some users, and we have lost some very knowledgeable mebers of the community due to this discord. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:11 | comment | added | user14972 | Was there really a question about its fate? I mean this question seriously: I haven't paid careful enough attention to actually have realistic knowledge about the distribution of life cycles of such questions. | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:05 | comment | added | user98602 | Is it possible for moderators to vote to close without automatically closing it (i.e., voting as a regular user)? If not, why not? | |
| Feb 25, 2014 at 15:04 | history | asked | Bill Dubuque | CC BY-SA 3.0 |