# Requests for Reopen & Undeletion Votes, etc. (volume 01/2015 - 07/2018 ) [duplicate]

The purpose of this thread is to help focus the attention of the community on posts that may require exceptional handling. This includes requests for reopen and undeletion votes. A request should be posted as an answer below.

Please do not use this thread to engage in debates on contentious matters (e.g. reasons for closure). That should be done in a separate linked thread. The goal is to keep this meta thread free of tension, so that everyone feels comfortable posting here. Please be polite, and respect the many different viewpoints in our diverse community.

To inform readers of the current (and past) states of the targeted post, please prepend tags such as:

Reopened, reclosed or

Undeleted

at the start of the answer when a change of status occurs. (This also makes it easier to browse through the list by creating a visual difference for posts that still require action.)

Beware that "short" requests such as "request reopening of " may be automatically converted to comments by the SE software, so you may need to write more (e.g. why you think that the question should be reopened or undeleted).

Notice that the first edit after the question was put on-hold pushes the question into reopen review queue, if the edit was done withing 5 days of closure. So does a reopen vote. It is reasonable to wait until the review is finished before posting here. (If the review has already been finished, it is shown on the timeline of the question.)

(description copied from the old thread)

As has been proposed in chat (and seconded by a couple of users), it seems that it is time to create a new thread for reopen and undeletion requests. The old thread (as of now) has over $$200$$ answers, and it is really hard to scroll through the mass of old and/or possibly outdated answers--voting is a mess, too. (It's especially problematic for 10k users who can see the deleted posts.)

Reopened, reclosed, deleted, undeleted, deleted by a moderator

This question was closed as off-topic for missing context or other details. In fact the OP did explain what he’d already attempted, so the relevant context was present from the beginning. It’s perfectly true that he’s missing something that most of us will find blatantly obvious, but that is hardly grounds for closing the question. Please reopen this question.

• This reopening suggestion generated comments that first turned into a debate, but then started devolving towards personal insults. An automatic system flag was raised for the number of comments. I deleted the whole lot, because I couldn't find a break point that would not leave the impression that one of you was given "the last word". I think that the involved users already know how the others feel, so continuing this is pointless. You are welcome to start a discussion in a more appropriate meta thread. There I will promise to let our usual "free-for-all" live its course. – Jyrki Lahtonen Jan 18 '15 at 18:21

I would like for this question to be undeleted. It was originally unclear what OP meant because what was listed to prove was $\prod_{i=2}^n=\frac{n+1}{2n}$ for all $n\geq 2$, a clearly nonsensical problem. Fortunately, I realized what the OP meant was to prove $\prod_{i=2}^n\left(1-\frac{1}{i^2}\right)=\frac{n+1}{2n}$ for all $n\geq 2$. Unfortunately, however, by the time I had finished writing up my solution, the OP had deleted the question. My solution took me a while to write up, and I would like to not have all of my work to go to waste for no reason.

• Now you have an upvote and undeletion vote. – Bill Dubuque Apr 4 '15 at 4:54
• @BillDubuque Thanks Bill. And thanks for the link you provided earlier on that irrationality question. I didn't continue the comments because I actually addressed that my provided answer didn't really answer OP's question--which is why I didn't modify it so he'd accept. Thanks again for the helpful comments. – Daniel W. Farlow Apr 4 '15 at 4:56
• I hazard a guess that the downvoters felt that you were really begging for attention to your answer. Originally the well received answers in this thread (and its congested predecessor) had a more altruistic air - pointing out things that deleters or close-voters had missed. – Jyrki Lahtonen Apr 4 '15 at 5:01
• @JyrkiLahtonen I guess that's a possibility. Don't see why it deserves downvotes though. I honestly don't care if my answer gets attention but I do find it to be very annoying to take the time to type something up that is comprehensive and well-typeset only to have the post deleted. And the suggestion by now uname pizza to post a question and answer seems like a very poor alternative. That begs attention IMO. But now it doesn't really seem to matter. Another negative experience. – Daniel W. Farlow Apr 4 '15 at 5:05
• As explained in the body of the post and in other comments, "Only the change in status is recorded, not the original status. It makes it easier to browse through the list by creating a visual difference between requests for which nothing has changed (and thus still require action), and those for which something has changed (usually the issue has been resolved)." – Najib Idrissi Apr 4 '15 at 6:40
• You can post your answer here: math.stackexchange.com/q/265483, a question that already has 3 known duplicates. – Jonas Meyer Apr 4 '15 at 13:35
• @JonasMeyer Thanks for the link. Doesn't really matter at this point anymore. OP's loss. – Daniel W. Farlow Apr 4 '15 at 13:44

I do not understand why this question has been closed and what is unclear with it:

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1754981/why-is-sum-k-1-infty-n-kn-1-sum-k-1-infty-leftkn-k-1n-right

• Is it really necessary to reopen it just so that it can be closed as "missing context" later? This isn't your first rodeo, you know how these things work. – Najib Idrissi Apr 25 '16 at 7:34
• @Najib Idrissi what context is needed? I provided motivation in the comment but it is really interesting to me why these seemingly different series coincide. – Anixx Apr 25 '16 at 11:00
• Well, there's your problem: why is it in a comment? Work on making a proper question (read the guidelines on how to ask a good question if needed), and then ask here for your question to be reopened. Anything else will lead to what you've experienced: downvotes and probably votes to delete once your question is eligible. – Najib Idrissi Apr 25 '16 at 11:10
• @Najib Idrissi I think it was closed because the closers did not understand what Ramanujan's summation is, not what you are suggesting. In itself it is quite curious coincidence to be interesting in its own. – Anixx Apr 25 '16 at 11:13

Reopened and then Reclosed, and then Deleted by moderator Alexander Gruber

https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/q/23336/36639

This question issued some valid and legitimate concerns about the appearance of a new user name as a moderator. It was by no means obvious where this moderator came from or even if he is an on Mathematics SE elected moderator, before this got clarified in one of the answers.

So I think that question should not have been closed (unilateraly by another moderator...!). (BTW Are unilateral closures by moderators not frowned upon on Mathematics SE?)

• The question had been closed for less than two days and had four (?) votes to reopen when this answer was posted; it didn't really need an answer here. – user296602 Jun 2 '16 at 19:19
• Are unilateral closures by moderators not frowned upon on Mathematics SE? They are not except by very few users. Maybe you would know that if you were an actual participant in this community, instead of just coming to meta to stir things up. (You have half as many posts on meta as you have on main!) – Najib Idrissi Jun 3 '16 at 7:07
• @Dilation The prior comment is not very accurate. To get a more accurate assessment one can browse the prior threads here on such topics, where you can find many complaints about such unilateral closures, including some by prolific contributors, e.g. here. – Bill Dubuque Jun 3 '16 at 15:45
• If you are interested, you can work out this mystery for yourself. It took me a few minutes. – hardmath Jun 4 '16 at 2:55
• Thanks @BillDubuque I know... :-/. And the fact that Gerry Myerson gets outright insulted by people including the moderator arjafi (!) for doing nothing but issuing legitimate concerns, whereas my (at least 5 times upvoted) comment pointing this out did get deleted, is a definitive deal breaker. I know that on all SE sites that strongly adher to the SE way of living, reasonable people who issue legitimate concerns get insulted and downvoted on a daily basis. But I did not expact this to happen here too ... – Dilaton Jun 4 '16 at 18:46
• @Gerry The post has now been deleted by a moderator vote, which means that ordinary users can no longer vote to undelete. Imo, moderators should not invoke such superpowers when the subject has to do with moderation. – Bill Dubuque Jun 25 '16 at 0:52
• For the record, the question is deleted since almost three weeks (it was deleted on June 6th). Furthermore, the moderator vote was the second vote to delete, not the first. In addition the question had had two user delete votes earlier. That is, the moderator was at least the third user that had had the idea to vote to delete. (Personally, I did not vote on the question at all.) In addition @Gerry had been informed about the deletion then. It is a mystery why this is revisited now. – quid Jun 26 '16 at 18:58
• It is unfortunate that the question was deleted; it was a reasonable question the content of which was "Does it bother anybody that we have a moderator, math.stackexchange.com/users/8348/arjafi, who "prefers to keep an air of mystery about them"? No? OK, never mind." The asker was a user with 5 years experience on the site and 124k rep, which also suggests that the question might be given more credit. – Carl Mummert Jun 28 '16 at 2:15
• @Carl "more credit" than what? At least three moderators of this site interacted with the question, in addition to numerous users, some of them quite experienced, too. – quid Jun 28 '16 at 17:18

Reopened, Reclosed, Deleted, Undeleted, Deleted and undeleted again, Deleted for the third time

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1422534/topological-space-that-is-not-sequential-and-not-t-0

This question was closed with a lack of context reason, but it is clear and requires no additional context. I suspect it was closed because an inappropriate inflammatory comment (now deleted), which I flagged, encouraged others to interpret the question as rudely imperative.

Note (2016-09-02): An improved form of the question is now at Example of a topological space which is neither sequential nor $T_0$

• Needs 1 more undelete vote. – Bill Dubuque Jul 18 '16 at 22:53
• @Bill done, thanks for the heads up. – Matt Samuel Jul 18 '16 at 23:12
• Sigh, I accidentally clicked Delete when I was aiming for Reopen. Very poor UI design having them so close together, esp. when you cannot retract a delete vote. – Bill Dubuque Jul 19 '16 at 0:38
• I would like to vote to delete, but it seems that one of the two current deletion votes is unintentional; as such, I will refrain from being the third and consider this comment to "cancel" the accidental vote from @BillDubuque if anyone would like to cast the third. – user296602 Jul 19 '16 at 3:43
• @T.Bongers That's quite honorable. Thanks. – Bill Dubuque Jul 19 '16 at 3:44
• @BillDubuque that's curious. What is your set-up? I get a pop-up to confirm a delete (or reopen) vote? From your description it appears you do not. – quid Jul 19 '16 at 7:16
• @quid Does anyone really read the popups? It would help if they were more immediately visually distinguishable (or if deletes were undoable).. But it is a rare event (don't recall it every happening to me before), so I'm not going to worry about it too much. – Bill Dubuque Jul 19 '16 at 13:06
• @T.Bongers Bill Dubuque by now voted twice to undelete. In case you still care the post be deleted you might actually cast your vote. – quid Aug 31 '16 at 23:19
• @BillDubuque would I track it would not have taken me a month to notice. Instead when this became reactivate, I was idly curious who now again undeleted that old thing (and the info is just a click away). But since we are talking about trivia and fun facts, what a coincidence you somehow independently bumped into that thread again. – quid Sep 1 '16 at 6:43
• @BillDubuque I am voting to delete ("again") because of the double deletion vote, as quid suggested. During the latest round of undeletion, you were the first voter - so I doubt that you came across it in the list of active undelete votes. That being said, the cynical part of me is starting to regret my decision to not vote last time.... – user296602 Sep 1 '16 at 13:48
• I will point out that now there is another question asking basically the same thing, but it is probably less likely to get closed and deleted. – Martin Sleziak Sep 3 '16 at 10:44

Deleted

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2100198/covariance-of-conditionally-independent-random-variables

This question was clumsily expressed but its meaning was clear to me. It was unclear to people not accustomed to this kind of problem, and they closed it. I edited to clarify the question (and left a mathematical error in the question intact).

PS in response to comments: I am taken to task for "making assumptions" about the motives of those who closed the question. But I only said it was unclear to them, and they all said that themselves first. It's not an "assumption"; rather it is their own statement. And moreover, I know that those who are accustomed to this kind of question can understand it in the clumsy form in which it is expressed before I edited it.

• It might be worth pointing out that the question is still in reopen review queue. (Reviews that are already finished are shown in the timeline, which is why the close review is shown there, but reopen review will only be shown there after the question goes through the review.) – Martin Sleziak Jan 17 '17 at 4:05
• Please stop routinely making assumptions about users who voted to close questions you want to see reopened. Unless they leave comments explaining their vote (here, they did not), you have no way of knowing their motives, or of knowing that they voted to close because they were ignorant of the subject (as you feel free to state). At first, the question was not answerable (for lack of a crucial hypothesis). Then the OP did add a hypothesis, but it was absurd hence the question was still unanswerable. Finally, the revised version mentions the needed, correct, hypothesis, hence one could ... – Did Jan 17 '17 at 8:07
• ... answer the question, unfortunately it is still severely lacking of context (sorry but a (wrong) formula for the covariance of two random variables does not count as context for a question mainly concerned with conditional distributions). For example, even before attacking their question per se, is the OP able to simply compute $E(X)$ from their hypotheses? They do not say, even after all the turmoil, and this lack is an indication in itself. – Did Jan 17 '17 at 8:08

I would like to reopen a self-deleted post What can I conclude about the solution of this linear system? (question ID: 2194202, backup on Evernote) by AlexB since "that's rude towards the answerer", according to our site mod.

Self-deletion of questions with answers of nonnegative score prevents others from answering and benefiting from them. This is in conflict with the objective of this site.

• I agree with the principle. In this case though, the answer lost due to the OP's bad manners is simply the transcript of some CAS instructions hence recovering it does not seem very necessary to me. – Did Mar 20 '17 at 7:32
• @Did If we focus the discussion on the question itself, it's certainly a math question (determine the existence of solution in a linear system), and I believe it can be solved if one can show that the determinant is nonzero. As we allow questions about determinant computations to exist, I see no reason why this question can't. Self-deletion prevents others from attempting this question. This is a loss to the site due to the loss of original contents, which is an important contributing factor when it comes to SEO. Moreover, the voting mechanism allows others to judge whether that's useful. – GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會 Mar 20 '17 at 15:09
• Did you read my comment? I said that the principle you explain in the question above and that you repeat in your comment is ok. At the same time... in the present case... I cannot help to note that the first answer posted contains zero mathematics stricto sensu and I cannot help to think that this is not a good sign regarding the possible arrival of mathematically consistent answers, should this question be reopened. Just my two cents. – Did Mar 20 '17 at 15:52
• @Did If you think that my answer is not good, you can downvote me, you can scold me for rubbishing OP (even in a direct manner). At least I know that my post doesn't even worth two cents. But self-deletion without a complaint prevents everyone of us to learn and to be improved. OK. You win the debate by criticising the quality of my answer, but who else? What's the benefit to other users who want to discover math and to the Stack Exchange site? The question itself has its mathematical value: the determinant of a matrix with five diagonals. See this. – GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會 Mar 20 '17 at 20:49
• Again, you seem to not be reading what I actually write. To address only one of the straw men you build in your comment (there are several), nobody is preventing anybody to learn anything here. If you (or anybody else) think there is something of value to the site which is hidden in the question (be it a determinant of a matrix with five diagonals, or anything else), you can rephrase it more clearly and, if you think the rephrased question is a worthy addition to the site, post it. In short, the closure of a bad question that received no mathematical answer yet, is not the drama you make. – Did Mar 21 '17 at 6:57
• Quote from the question above: "Please do not use this thread to engage in debates on contentious matters (e.g. reasons for closure). That should be done in a separate linked thread. The goal is to keep this meta thread free of tension, so that everyone feels comfortable posting here. Please be polite, and respect the many different viewpoints in our diverse community." – Did Mar 21 '17 at 6:58
• @Did Interesting. You ask me not do engage in debates, but you're expressing your view points in your reply. So the counterexample to Euler's conjecture is not mathematics, since it's found by a computer program. I've explicitly pointed out that this has prevented users to view this question, since even 10k users can't see the determinant of this question, and then you say "nobody is preventing anybody to learn anything here". – GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會 Mar 21 '17 at 10:11
• At this level of distorsion of my views, I feel difficult to find a reason to continue. Sorry. – Did Mar 21 '17 at 10:14
• Finally, this is not a closure, but a self-deletion. The contents of a closed question won't disappear, and this won't have any negative impact to the site's SEO, but self-deletion of original contents on this site will. There's a proper closing mechanism for handling this on this site designed by SE. – GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會 Mar 21 '17 at 10:14
• In cases where a Question (to which I've posted an Answer, or attempted to do so) has been self-deleted, I consider re-posting the Question myself as a better alternative (than overriding the OP's wishes). This is general advice, however; I have not looked at the specific Question you are concerned with. – hardmath Mar 23 '17 at 11:55
• @hardmath Thanks for your advice. I'll take it next time I encounter this situation. – GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會 Mar 23 '17 at 19:40

Reopened

Are the elements of a set within a set also the elements of the latter?

I wonder whether any of those who voted to close this question as "unclear what you're asking" did not understand the question, or whether they simply disapprove of the clumsy and imprecise language in which the question was expressed. The latter should not be grounds for closing a question, but rather for including in one's answer something about how to express it better. In the former case, those who don't understand the question might realize what it says if they look at the posted answers, and then they will probably realize that they could have understood it if they had put only a little bit more effort into the matter. In this particular instance it won't take much.

PS: I now see that this question was quickly reopened after I posted this.

Deleted

I'm asking about facts that demystify this question and explain the differences in difficulte, thus this is not an 'opinion-based' question'. I don't know if those quotes are true or not. Either way, why or why not? Please apprise me if I can revise my question.

Reopened

Did marked my question a duplicate. Why is it a duplicate?

I made a slightly different approach to the same question here.

• For some context. (For the record, I am against the deletion of this meta post, which would only allow the OP to continue to rewrite history, a key part of their approach to this undeletion thread.) – Did Nov 17 '15 at 9:35
• @Did: That's weird, it seems that all answers to this meta questions should not be deleted. – user99914 Nov 17 '15 at 9:59
• @JohnMa Indeed, and some even less than others... – Did Nov 17 '15 at 10:04

May I request the reopening of https://math.stackexchange.com/q/1786854/53259.

It would help to have constructive criticism on why it was put on hold as unclear what you're asking, because I do not understand what is unclear.

Undeleted

This meta question deserves to be undeleted, not only because it contains interesting policy discussion, but also because it contains one of the richest meta answers ever posted (by Matt Emerton). I am completely baffled by the decision to delete it.

Since many users do not have sufficient rep to see Matt's answer, I reproduce it below.

I would just like to record that I'm disappointed in the way this question was handled. As zyx notes in a comment under Alex Becker's answer, there are numerous comments in this meta-thread that could have appeared as (at least partial) answers to the question proper.

Even if (in some people's view) the question admits a trivial answer, it wouldn't be the only such question on the site. Personally, though, I find the question interesting; as someone who works in the area related to Wiles's proof, it's something I think about myself from time to time.

Added: To give one concrete example of an answer to the original question:

In the paper of Taylor--Wiles, a certain "non-canonical" projective limit is taken, and it is important to show that it is non-empty (indeed, the whole proof rests on this). I remember being in the lectures at Harvard when Taylor first explained this (in the Fall of 1994), and audience members (Mazur, Serre, ... ) being shocked --- the whole thing seemed quite unnatural, and the non-emptiness was proved basically by a compactness argument (Tychonoff's theorem, if you like), which (at least naively) uses some form of choice.

This was disturbing enough to people in the field that some serious thought was given to how to eliminate this; in the standard text on the subject (Modular forms and Fermat's Last Theorem, ed. by Cornell, Silverman, and Stevens) the chapter dealing with this argument explains how to replace the projective limit and compactness argument by a concrete constructive argument that works at some (construcively determined) finite level of the projective system in play.

This reminds of various discussion Terry Tao has placed on his blog, where he explains how to go from "hard" finitistic analysis (with a lot of $\epsilon$-management) to more soft, infinitary arguments (say by applying non-standard analysis ideas), except here number theorists were going in the reverse direction, in order to convince themselves that the infinitary methods weren't really necessary.

If this kind of fuss seems strange to non-number-theorists, I should explain that for those schooled in number theory/Grothendieckian alg. geom./commutative algebra in the modern style, non-canonical infinitary constructions (that I imagine some analysts, or Ramsey-theorists, and so on, might regard as their bread-and-butter) run very much against the established cultural view as to why statements are (or should be) true. Similarly, elimination of choice simply by "reduction to $L$" doesn't fit very well with number-theoretic culture; people expect more directly structural/conceptual explanations (where the structures and concepts involved should have to do with particular arithmetic objects in play, not general foundational ideas).

[By the way, I think this is an example of material that would have been better posted as an answer to the original question then on this meta-thread.]

• That particular storm seems to have passed now, so I think that this reopening request deserves a fresh look. – Jyrki Lahtonen Dec 10 '15 at 13:33
• @Jyrki The linked meta thread has actually already been undeleted since then (this request calls for the undeletion of the meta thread). – Najib Idrissi Dec 10 '15 at 13:38

I know that the question might not be on par with the quality of the site. I am posting this answer as a genuine request. There are good answers by user Aaron and user Thumbnail.

Thank you.

• One of the answer you are saying is good is literally telling you that your question is not about mathematics. You say yourself that the question might not meet the site's quality standards. Why should it be undeleted? Other users might stumble upon this question and believe it's okay to ask this sort of questions (off-topic, not up to quality standards). – Najib Idrissi Apr 27 '15 at 14:49
• @NajibIdrissi Its just a request. If the community doesn't want to undelete it then thats ok. If other users stumble upon it then thry won't believe what you say because it is already closed and downvoted. – user103816 Apr 27 '15 at 16:24
• If you're going to post a request, it would make sense to explain why... And if new users find this question, they will see it downvoted, close (not even sure because it already has a reopen vote), and answered and not deleted. What's the message here? "Post your question, you will get an answer even if the question is bad and deserves to be downvoted and closed". – Najib Idrissi Apr 27 '15 at 16:38
• @NajibIdrissi I'm not interested in debating. I posted this request because the question says this is a thread for doing so. If you have any problem then downvote, VTC, or VTD and leave. I told you previously not to communicate with me. "What is the massage with those 15000 closed question?" If they can be undeleted then why can't be mine? Now please leave me. – user103816 Apr 28 '15 at 0:48

Undeleted then Redeleted, and now Undeleted again, and now Redeleted again, yet now Undeleted once more. And Redeleted automatically again, Mod-deleted.

Please undelete this question. This was automatically deleted by the system because it has negative votes. I strongly disagree with this feature. Any user can downvote for whatever reason.

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1183087/integral-closures-of-algebras-of-finite-type-over-the-ring-of-algebraic-integers

### Moderator note:

I have mod-deleted the question to end the deletion-undeletion ping-pong with Community♦. It seems unlikely that this question would ever have reached a non-negative score again to prevent the auto-deletion (probably those who wanted the question to stay have already voted on it, and new passers-by upvoting it didn't come). Also, nobody has answered it, which could prevent auto-deletion too (if the answer got a positive score). If you think the question should be on the site, ask a new version.

• But, if we undelete it, the system will just delete it again. With its silicon brain it can be very stubborn. Better ask a better question on the same subject instead. – quid Apr 29 '15 at 1:35
• If it is undeleted, an answer or an increase to a nonnegative score would keep it from being autodeleted. – Jonas Meyer Apr 29 '15 at 2:46
• @quid Better ask a better question on the same subject instead I have no idea how to make the question better. It is simple. And I wrote the motivation. – Makoto Kato Apr 29 '15 at 23:55
• The question being undelete and you having found two upvotes to score it 0 atm the thing is somewhat moot (at least for a year). The question was not always in the form it is now, so even to repost it essentially in the form as is, would have been an improvement on the process of asking you had the first time. But also the formatting and wording could be polished, and the motivation you give feels kind of forced and not organically integrated. – quid Apr 30 '15 at 0:01
• @quid "the motivation you give feels kind of forced" Indeed, it was forced. So what's wrong with me writing it? – Makoto Kato May 9 '15 at 1:02
• I am not sure I understand what you mean. The motivation is not integrated in a good way and is generally not very convincing. It is better than having none at all though. So nothing is wrong with you writing it. It is just not overly good. Thus, the question was not received well. If you'd work on those aspects you might be able to ask questions that are better received. – quid May 9 '15 at 1:11
• @quid "The motivation is not integrated in a good way and is generally not very convincing" I intentionally separated the motivation from the question. Integrating motivation into a question obscures the question. Many users do this mistake. – Makoto Kato May 12 '15 at 0:15
• @WilliamCurtis there is a difference between separating motivation and question, and having sentences that feel a bit random thrown into the post. But, it goes without saying, you do as you see fit. – quid May 12 '15 at 7:44
• @quid, "The question being undelete and you having found two upvotes to score it 0 atm the thing is somewhat moot (at least for a year)." That "year" only took about three weeks, presumably because in the meantime the question got a downvote. – Gerry Myerson May 25 '15 at 5:46
• @GerryMyerson as I explained on the other question now with emphasis "The question was auto-deleted when it reached negative score again." Yes, apparently it got another dv and thus fell under the 30 days script. Also in the comment you quote I had emphasis the score 0 at the moment. – quid May 25 '15 at 9:35
• This is becoming a symbol of the struggle of human vs machine... – Najib Idrissi May 31 '15 at 8:53

Reopened, Reclosed, Deleted (by Community)

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1617330/should-i-be-worried-that-i-cant-prove-these-theorems-on-my-own-yet

The notice explaining why this was closed says "answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise".

I think that is wrong. "Specific expertise" can play a major role here, very likely being the whole basis of all of the answers (as with mine).

• I'm afraid that I feel I must point out that most of your answer in the thread is an explanation of the theorems that the OP can't prove, rather than an answer to the question. Without specific knowledge of where the OP is in terms of his or her mathematical education, answering the question of what they ought to be able to prove on their own is extremely subjective. – user296602 Jan 20 '16 at 6:19
• @T.Bongers : "point out" seems to imply that you're simply calling something to my attention that might have escaped my notice. I think virtually everything in your comment is wrong and does not call to my attention anything that might have escaped my notice. You say I have no specific knowledge of where the OP is in mathematical education, but the OP has been fairly specific about some of that, and I didn't assume any more than what the OP said. – Michael Hardy Jan 20 '16 at 17:13
• I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend by my use of "point out." I was simply trying to soften my remark, rather than jump immediately into a statement of my objections; I didn't mean that something had escaped your notice. That being said, I do not agree that the OP has been specific about where they are in their education - real (and numerical) analysis is a broad field that can be studied in many ways at many different levels. Furthermore, even if you disagree with the current closure reason, I think that this certainly satisfies the closure reason about "seeking personal advice." – user296602 Jan 20 '16 at 19:27
• I don't see anything wrong with personal advice if it's applicable to a large population rather than just the individual user. – Michael Hardy Jan 20 '16 at 21:00
• If this is really the case then the question and the answer can easily be rewritten to make it clear it's applicable to a large population. It's like "trivial" statements, if you can't prove it in a few lines it's not trivial. – Najib Idrissi Jan 20 '16 at 21:28

Deleted

Such a harmless little question, what had it done to anyone to make them angry with it?

They put my question on hold after it has been here since April, what is up with that? You can find the question here... https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1249798/set-theory-and-1-0-999-dots

They said "put on hold as off-topic", I just want to know what that means.

In the help center it says...

Mathematics Stack Exchange is for people studying mathematics at any level and professionals in related fields. We welcome questions about: Understanding mathematical concepts and theorems.

And that is exactly what this question is trying to do, understand the mathematical concepts and theorems of infinity.

Since infinity is a difficult topic, that is often still in the research stage, would anyone recommend that this question be reopened on the MO site?

• If the best argument you can find for your question to remain open is "it won't make the site crash" and "it slipped through the cracks back in April so now it should remain open forever", then I don't think you quite understand how this website works. In any case, your question was apparently nothing more than a soapbox for you to expose your... peculiar conceptions about limits and sets. The qualifiers "harmless little question" also appear to be at odds with the staggering 12 downvotes it received. – Najib Idrissi Jan 30 '16 at 15:22
• Does anyone know of a site where this question would be more appropriate? – Carl Jan 30 '16 at 15:27
• I'm pretty sure MO would not welcome a question about $1=0.999\dots$. – Gerry Myerson Jan 31 '16 at 22:22
• Since infinity is a difficult topic, that is often still in the research stage The equation $0.999\ldots = 1$ is certainly not at the "research stage" anymore! Nor is the fact that $1$ does not belong to the set $\{0.9, 0.99, 0.999, \dots \}$. – Najib Idrissi Feb 1 '16 at 8:25
• @Najib Idrissi, If what you say is true, then someone should have been able to link to a lecture, website or a book that covers the question of $\ 1 \in \{\,0.9, 0.99, 0.999, \dots \}$, but nobody does that, they only make assertions that this is the way it is, and everybody knows that. – Carl Feb 1 '16 at 10:24
• The sky is blue. Do you need a link to a lecture, website or book to confirm that? – Najib Idrissi Feb 1 '16 at 10:40
• @Najib Idrissi, You just confirmed what I said. My question is not in the literature and the answer is not at all obvious, but for some reason everybody thinks it is obvious. Can I ask you who told you that $\ 1 \notin \{\,0.9, 0.99, 0.999, \dots \}$ is the case or how did you figure it out? – Carl Feb 1 '16 at 10:43
• You got 13 different answers to your question. Read them. I don't see the point of rehashing it all out here. – Najib Idrissi Feb 1 '16 at 10:50
• @Najib Idrissi, I asked you how you figured it out and you bring up the 13 answers in my question. Does that mean that before my question and those 13 answers, you did not know if $\ 1 \in \{\,0.9, 0.99, 0.999, \dots \}$ is true or false? – Carl Feb 1 '16 at 10:55
• Please stop harassing me, thanks. – Najib Idrissi Feb 1 '16 at 10:55
• @Najib Idrissi, thank you for time and input, I wish you well. – Carl Feb 1 '16 at 10:57

Deleted, undeleted, redeleted.

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2054039/umvu-estimator-for-distribution-function-and-density

Sometimes students post a question that they don't understand, and no actual question about mathematics is present in their own mind. That is a reason why in some kinds of cases, one asks for a demonstration of some effort to answer the question. Is this such a case? Is there someone who thinks it is? Can someone who thinks it is such a case argue in favor of that proposition? Can someone among those who closed this question answer it? As I said in my posted answer, I don't know a way to get to the bottom line without numerical methods. Does anyone?

• Currently 3 votes to reopen, and 2 to delete. – Gerry Myerson Dec 18 '16 at 5:32
• Why is nobody who wants this question closed willing to say anything? – Michael Hardy Dec 18 '16 at 16:17
• @hardmath : What sort of context do you have in mind? The meaning of the question is perfectly clear, and that's certainly more than can be said for lots of questions posted here. – Michael Hardy Dec 18 '16 at 17:27
• Again, I'd be happy to discuss this in chat if you ping me there. – hardmath Dec 18 '16 at 17:32
• I voted to close because of lack of context. I don't always expect someone to post actual work, since it might be just musings, I want to see more than just a totally standalone question. Now as with every non-math rule, I note the exception is for questions whose answer is exceptional or useful or insightful or helpful in some way. This one I could have gone either way, but since the answer itself was incomplete, I judged that the use to the future would be closer to tossing around some ideas than a concrete thing with a complete answer that could be referenced for the benefit of others. – Adam Hughes Dec 19 '16 at 3:05
• More or less the same reasons as Adam Hughes. I do not plan to justify all my votes, especially when the 30th question of a user looks a "do my work question". – Davide Giraudo Dec 22 '16 at 10:52
• MichaelHardy: This has happened many times now so let me signal a disturbing fact. You repeatedly see fit to ask, rather stridently, for explanations about standard actions of others, your subtext being that such actions are in fact nefarious and signalling some crucial dysfunctionality of the site, that you wish to modify. But when you receive cogent explanations about said actions, like here, you stay silent and just move to the next installment of the same scheme. Sorry to be blunt but, to my eyes (and, possibly, to some others'), such a behaviour is simply ruining your credibility. – Did Dec 22 '16 at 11:48
• @Did : "Standard" actions are often perfectly justified, but also sometimes knee-jerk reactions. There is currently no way to notify those who close a question that their decision is being discussed. Two such people when I contacted them by email reacted somewhat favorably to the idea that their notifications ought to include that. If they never find out that discussions are happening, then a knee-jerk response never gets any further calibration. Why should there not at least be routine notifications of the sort that occur when someone comments on your posting? – Michael Hardy Dec 22 '16 at 18:19
• I do not feel this is addressing the point in my comment at all, but hey, no big deal. – Did Dec 22 '16 at 18:29
• Now 4 votes to reopen, 1 to delete. – Gerry Myerson Dec 22 '16 at 18:53