-8
$\begingroup$

I never got my question on Bergman Spaces answered with any good quality and it received only $1$ upvote and some nonsequitor comment from a very high reputation user, while a similar post about Polish Spaces asked at (roughly) the same time had a similar level of effort put in to the question, the OP asked essentially the same as me, "Why study this?". The primary differences,

  1. They didn't receive any cocky comments

  2. They got a quality answer .... with 6 of upvotes and a lower quality answer with 1 downvote.

  3. Their question was upvoted 16 times and was selected as a favorite question by two people.

  4. In both cases, the same very high rep user was in the comments... but in the other post he was constructive, in mine he was at best annoying.

I was thinking there might be a few reasons for this: First, this OP put a bounty on the question (I did not), secondly the OP has a lot more rep than me so people might take his question more seriously. But I think its the responsibility of high rep users to treat posts equally. I think my question was valid, am I being unreasonable, is there anything I can do to get my question (and future ones) better answers (before you post it... I've already read this post on how to ask better questions and all of its answers.

In full disclosure, in one my own answers I said that reputation means nothing at the end of the day, but I think that there is something to be said when a post is ignored simply because the OP doesn't have several thousand rep.

$\endgroup$
9
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ EDIT: He was unconstructive in both cases $\endgroup$
    – Squirtle
    Jun 19, 2014 at 18:06
  • 8
    $\begingroup$ Or alternatively, more people know about and are interested in Polish spaces. ... (ed ajf) $\endgroup$
    – user61527
    Jun 19, 2014 at 18:13
  • 8
    $\begingroup$ ... [T]his question raises at least two interesting points: 1) Do people treat questions differently based on the reputation of the asker? (Probably yes, but well I put some work into earning that reputation, so it's not entirely undeserved.) 2) Are there areas of mathematics underrepresented at MSE and MO? (For example, are there more experts on this site, who are able to say somethings interesting about Polish spaces, than people who could give some informed answer on Bergman spaces?) (ed ajf) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Jun 19, 2014 at 18:26
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ Granted, playful comments are not necessarily constructive, but I don't see them as harmful either. If you find a comment offensive, please flag it for moderator attention. As you can see, singling out a particular comment on meta usually ends up creating bad feelings. Name calling never turns out well. $\endgroup$
    – robjohn Mod
    Jun 19, 2014 at 18:44
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak: I agree that the difference is the number of people on this site who know about the subjects in question. Perhaps your comment could be made into an answer. $\endgroup$
    – robjohn Mod
    Jun 19, 2014 at 18:46
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ If you feel that a comment is non-constructive, you can flag it as being... not constructive. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Jun 19, 2014 at 19:09
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ As the main offending comment has been removed, I have taken the liberty to clean up the entire comment thread (both deleting comments that didn't seem salvageable, and "trimming" some I felt were). Please keep this discussion civil. Flag offending comments instead of going tit-for-tat. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Jun 19, 2014 at 19:15
  • 6
    $\begingroup$ Its most probably the case that Bergman spaces are unpopular and I definitely over-reacted, combine that with my experience of seeing several rude answers (to others' questions) over the past few days and an irrational feeling that $my$ question was personally being ignored, and so I over-reacted. I think S.E. is great (most of the time) and I'm really sorry for any name-calling or inappropriate responses. $\endgroup$
    – Squirtle
    Jun 19, 2014 at 19:20
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @ArthurFischer I appreciate your edit. People like you is what M.SE requires. $\endgroup$
    – user122283
    Jun 20, 2014 at 22:23

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5
$\begingroup$

Based on robjohn's reccomendation I am reposting my comment as an answer.

Putting the not very nice comments aside, this question raises at least two interesting points. (Maybe each of them would deserve a thread on meta for itself. And maybe they were already discussed on meta, although I don't remember such discussion.)

  1. Do people treat questions differently based on the reputation of the asker?

    Based on my experience on the site, people treat the users differently based on the reputation. Although most frequently, when I thought something like this might be manifesting, it was tied to generosity with upvotes (some kind of Matthew effect) not with posting answers.

    I would also like to add that people with high rep must have put some work into earning that reputation, so it's not entirely undeserved that they are treated nicely. (But the OP of this question already has enough reputation not to be treated on this site as a newbie. So I think they should be fine as far as this aspect is concerned.)

  2. Are there areas of mathematics underrepresented at MSE and MO? (For this particular case, are there more experts on this site, who are able to say somethings interesting about Polish spaces, than people who could give some informed answer on Bergman spaces?)

    It is very difficult for me to judge number of the experts on this site and quality of their answers, especially for the areas I am not familiar with and for the stuff that is advanced and well above my head. But if I had to made a very superficial guess, I would say that for example we are fine as far as , or is concerned. I am not sure there are so many people contributing to s, here. (As I have said, take my estimation of this with a grain of salt; since I am trying evaluating something I know almost nothing about.)

$\endgroup$
4
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ Thank you for your answer. I suppose feelings were heated, and things were said now that can't be undone - I apologize for that. I think you've made some really good points considering that fields like pde, for example, are often ignored here. My comments were based on me noticing a growing number of malicious comments and answers (mostly from young people with a lot of rep), I was tired of it and I think that certain people here seem to have carte blanche to say whatever they want b/c of their high rep... this annoyed me and I lashed out. Sorry to S.E. and especially @Asaf $\endgroup$
    – Squirtle
    Jun 19, 2014 at 19:16
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ @Squirtle: You obviously don't know me. There's a good chance that I'd have made the comment with reputation of 1200. I also don't think there's any malice in my comments (well, for the most part, maybe there is some malice in some comments I make, but hardly in the two cases singled out in your post). $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Jun 19, 2014 at 19:21
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ About group theory, one thing we need more of at MSE is infinite group theorists (particularly geometric group theorists). We have active experts here in finite and computational group theory, but past elementary levels there is almost no overlap with infinite group theory, so a lot of good questions go untouched. If I wasn't a belligerent finitist, I'd learn some, and cash in the reps. $\endgroup$
    – Alexander Gruber Mod
    Jun 19, 2014 at 20:49
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ It has been my observation that MSE has relatively many experts on number theory and algebra, and relatively few on PDEs and differential geometry. I'm not sure if this is representative of the demographics within mathematics as a whole, or something particular to this site. $\endgroup$
    – user7530
    Jun 19, 2014 at 22:02

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .