# Saying “Hello” at the beginning of a question/answer

I am wondering if there is a bug regarding the form of the questions and answers. Often I begin a question or an answer with "Hello..." and I notice that when I post it, it gets cut off. Is there a reason for this or am I doing something wrong?

• i.e. in this question I wrote "Hello community", for instance. – marco trevi Nov 2 '14 at 20:55
• Indication that a question may have been asked by a human being doesn't bother me a whole lot. Perhaps I am too insensitive. – André Nicolas Nov 3 '14 at 2:57
• @Andre: You wouldn't pass the reverse Voight-Kampf test like that. :-) – Asaf Karagila Nov 3 '14 at 4:52
• @AndréNicolas: Every question on the site "may have been asked by a human being," regardless of whether additional noise has been added to it. – user642796 Nov 3 '14 at 7:43
• Further, a machine capable of posting questions here should also be able to add some pseudo-salutation. – quid Nov 3 '14 at 17:54
• Does the software nail you if you start a question with "H3110"? – Gerry Myerson Nov 3 '14 at 21:45
• Ha! I'll try that next time :) – marco trevi Nov 4 '14 at 10:15
• You could also try "01134" and then turn your screen upside down. – Jacob Bond Nov 7 '14 at 17:47
• @JacobBond: Or $07734\ldots$ :-$)$ – Lucian Nov 10 '14 at 6:40
• I think I'll just begin with "Well be with you, gentlemen"... – marco trevi Nov 11 '14 at 8:57
• I would like to be able to start my question like a sir but mathstack does not allow me – Sina Nov 16 '14 at 2:34

Yes, greetings are automatically removed when they are detected. As Help Center says:

### Do not use signature, taglines, or greetings.

Every post you make is already “signed” with your standard user card, which links directly back to your user page. If you use an additional signature or tagline, it will be removed to reduce noise in the questions and answers.

(It really should say [or greeting] in the last sentence; an omission of the help center writer.)

One of reasons to cut out (and otherwise discourage) the greetings is that the beginning of a post is what one sees in search results. I'd much rather see

Suppose $$f$$ is analytic on a disk $$D$$ and the image of every horizontal line segment is a horizontal line segment...

than

Dearest Users of Mathematics Stack Exchange,
I am a long-time reader, first time poster. This question may be easy but I am stuck. It sa...

Generally, I recommend stating the question first, and adding any background information (thoughts, partial results, your background, motivation for the question... as applicable) after it.

• Your search result argument just converted me to your position. Very good point. – Jack M Nov 5 '14 at 23:32
• Gosh, makes me want to try and work around it... – copper.hat Nov 6 '14 at 3:29