# Is it appropriate to close every question that doesn't show efforts and/or lacks of context?

Yesterday this question was asked: Finding solutions to $2^x+17=y^2$, then it was closed and finally it was reopened. My concern is about if every question showing no effort or lacking of context should be closed. I mean, there are differences between the question above and other questions when the OP says something like: "help me plz [link to his/her question]".

This question reminds me of this one: Prüfer domains are Arithmetical rings which first was closed and then reopened. I find similarities in both questions not only for their "history", but also in the sense that both are not homework-like questions or copy/paste from textbooks, but rather questions that are possible that OP to have no clue at all when solving them. In my opinion I think that users who are able to cast close votes (I'm including myself) should think if every question without context and "showing no efforts" deserves to be closed.

EDIT: I feel I should include this question too: Why can't the quadratic formula be simplified? because it falls in the category of questions that are debatable to be closed and certainly there was a debate about it. Just to be totally clear, I think that is perfectly fine to downvote/close questions that are like the example that I wrote: "help me plz [link to his/her question] (wrong tag included)", but these other questions as I said show some effort made by the OP. Sure, there are things to improve, but there is clearly a difference between those questions and some others that are definitely of very low quality. That's my main doubt/concern.

1) While I agree that the community has made some consensus, I disagree about that "make it harder for the answerer to answer to the question for the OP's level". I've seen a lot of questions where the answerer doesn't care at all about if the OP is going to understand his/her answer and this led to another debate... which we won't discuss here.

2) Nothing to discuss here.

3) In my last example the OP wrote this: "I am currently taking Algebra 1 (the school year's almost over 😀), and we just learned the quadratic formula, another method to solve quadratic equations:". Even when in this case clearly the OP showed the context about his/her question (which implicitly show his/her mathematical background), there are currently 4 votes to close it. Why?

4) I understand that there is an stereotype about users with low reputation, but when reviewing a question I think we should let those things apart. For example, I doubt any user will consider the questions above as "spam".

P.S. 1. I'm not pretending to point out anyone in particular, but rather encouraging a debate to clarify when is right to vote to close a question.

P.S. 2. Some user told me to leave this debate, because in the past in has been debated, however I wasn't active in the past, so I think I have right to "reopen" this debate in order to make better this site.

• Since you have included the question about quadratic formula in your edit, it is worth mentioning that there is a separate post on meta ralted to that question. May 30, 2017 at 3:20
• The example you added Why can't the quadratic formula be simplified? illustrates the procedural benefits of closing Questions that initially lack context. In that post the "simplification" $\sqrt{b^2-4ac} = (b-2)\sqrt{ac}$ was inexplicably offered with the remark that the OP's teacher agrees this would be a (correct?) restatement of the quadratic formula. Some "steps" are now on view for how the OP justifies this, providing a more viable framework to show the roots of the mistake. Note some early "answers" jumped in without such context and got deleted. May 30, 2017 at 14:07
• Closely related, near dupe: math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/26017/…
– quid Mod
May 30, 2017 at 15:10
• Regarding the second question for instance, having no clue about solving them is one thing, but it ought to be possible OP states what is even the definition of the notions they use. If they don't know this either they ought to ask about this first. (Where they then should explain how they came about the thing in the first place.)
– quid Mod
May 30, 2017 at 15:30
• As is, the question is close to meaningless. There is no one standard definition of Prüfer domain, but various equivalent ones. With the "right" one at hand, the question is utterly trivial. Yeah, sure, realistically they won't have exactly that pair of definitions but which one(s) do the have. The user answering there just guessed something. Granted it's a good enough guess and the answer is nice, but the question is just terrible and ought to have been improved before giving an answer. Now, it's water under the bridge so I won't go back an VTC this now, but still it's a terrible question.
– quid Mod
May 30, 2017 at 15:30
• @quid As is, your comment is close to meaningless, since exactly the same could be said about many questions, e.g. there is no standard definition of a group, but various equivalent ones. With the right one .... May 31, 2017 at 13:10
• @BillDubuque it is not clear why my critic directed at one particular question, which was included in OP as example, becomes close to meaningless only because it applies to many questions. Indeed, I believe I raised the point already frequently on other occasions. As usual, there is a range, and I feel I acknowledged this with the part "Yeah, sure, realistically [...]" and "Granted it's a good enough guess [...]" I still feel that in this particular case it would be highly desirable that it is specified which of the equivalent definitions are known to OP already.
– quid Mod
May 31, 2017 at 14:00
• @quid Intelligent interpretation of questions almost always requires inferring much context. Choosing the worst possible interpretation is not intelligent. It's argument for the sake of argument - which you seem to enjoy. May 31, 2017 at 14:03
• @BillDubuque again, I acknowledged that there is a range. Your last sentence seems like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
– quid Mod
May 31, 2017 at 14:29
• @BillDubuque: It's surprising how often experience guides one to disregard the interpretations that the less knowledgeable actually have in mind. (also, "you're question is trivial if..." example is not being argumentative, but is meant to emphasize the need for the OP to clarify the precise question they wish to ask)
– user14972
May 31, 2017 at 17:59

I think I understand your concern, but I feel like adding a few words of consolation.

I am quite content with the way the processes available to our core users work in cases like these. The close/reopen cycles converge the way they should in most cases (not talking about the rare c/r/u/d wars).

In particular, the self-correcting mechanisms we have familiarized ourselves with work smoothly. As you witnessed, in the two first cases the question was duly reopened.

A few isolated thoughts, remarks, suggestions, pieces of advice, whatever:

1. We have a number users who want to apply the same standards about context/effort shown to questions at all levels. This is certainly their right, and very much a defensible point of view. I can understand why a voter from this faction would vote to close e.g. your exhibit #1.
2. My own instincts pull into a different direction. If I were a regular user I would lean towards what can be described (possibly euphemistically) healthy elitism, giving the askers of more advanced questions some slack. A more experienced diamond moderator (fairly sure it was Arthur) pointed out the logical contradiction in my views - the more advanced askers should know better and be able to give more context! But I'm vain enough to ignore logic here. Anyway, to reiterate a point I have made earlier: it makes me shake my head, when a users who has earned their rep answering questions about trigonometry feels qualified to judge a question on elliptic curves for lack of context without having a clue as to what kind of context might be available.
3. Conversely, it would not occur to me to vote to close a question on a topic I am unfamiliar with (for reasons of lacking context). Therefore I need to leave the battle against unclear questions in probability theory to Did and other qualified users.
4. Due to tensions like this it is IMO unrealistic to expect us to reach a site wide consensus. I'm afraid this would be my answer to your question: We cannot agree on whether voting to put on hold such questions is appropriate or not.
5. Which brings me back to the words of consolation. A user who cares enough about a question on hold always has the option to edit it into shape. This (as long as it is the first edit) will automatically place it in the reopening queue. If the edit comes later such a user can vote to reopen, and also plead the case in the appropriate meta thread for the same result.
6. Time to boast: I don't recall a single instance when I would have failed to get a question reopened by the above process. It may be that I am attuned well enough to the tastes of other active participants of meta / reopen review queue? May be, may be not? But I am very happy about this, and I want to encourage you to try it out also.
7. Time to confess: I did use my diamond moderator power vote to reopen one question that I felt was unjustly closed. I did ignore the due process as I was having a bad day :-( Mind you, I was duly chastised in meta (which also functions like the free press should in keeping diamond moderators honest). I only edited that question into shape afterwards, and that gave the case a bad aftertaste.
8. You may find the need to go via the reopening route unsatisfactory, but them's the breaks. Learning to live with the system, and using it, gives IMHO better results.
9. If you are worried about a promising new asker getting scared off the site, you can leave a comment describing this process to them. I frequently give askers such advice as well as suggestions how to improve their question. I failed to do that in the case of your exhibit #1 only because I was busy thinking about the actual problem! But, to speed up the reopening process in that particular case you could have also asked the OP to add their argument for even values of $x$ (that they apparently had figured out). Or, edit it in yourself. That would have very likely satisfied the voters.
10. If you indulge in writing such comments, do add a warning to the asker that the reopening cycle may take a while. Like a day or so. This is IMNSHO not too slow for an asker who wants to learn. It may be too slow for somebody who only wants somebody else to solve their homework problem due in 2 hours, but I won't shed any tears if we lose such a user.
– Xam
May 30, 2017 at 12:33
• Fine-tuning item #5 a bit. Martin Sleziak kindly pointed out to me that the specific rule states: an edit to a question on hold must come within 5 days to automatically place the question in the reopening-queue. Hardly relevant here, but I added this in case some future visitor mistakenly thinks I know what I'm talking about. May 31, 2017 at 10:09
• I am the person who edited in the trivial result on the even case, which the OP clearly knew about. I think it's ridiculous that I had to do it, because anybody who's not from this site would look at the question and say it was a perfectly well-posed math question. The OP was apparently confused by what was going on, and didn't know (and may still not know) why the question was "shelved," as he put it. I can hardly blame him. Jun 1, 2017 at 17:54
• @user49640: I understand. AFAIK the problem we are trying to solve is how to prevent the flood of freshmen dumping their calculus 101 (or thereabouts) homework here. Trial-and-error has lead to the current policy were additional "context" is required. But, it is difficult to formulate the rule in such a way that it would only apply to those lazy bums, and voters who have learned less cannot tell the difference between HW and this question. I admit that a newcomer who is unfamiliar with this history may become confused. That's exactly why I think some of those extra comments are necessary. Jun 1, 2017 at 18:52

I think these questions tend to be closed for a few reasons:

1) Generally a lack of context in the question gives the impression that the user has made no effort in trying to answer his own question. The community has made a consensus that these questions, however interesting they may be, make it harder for the answerers to answer the question for the OP's level.

2) Also, when the question finally is closed, the upvotes and reputation increase gained from that question will be reversed. In short, many people don't want to spend extra work accommodating for a person who seems to ask questions with little effort, and would much rather leave it alone to show that these types of questions are not accepted in the community.

3) As pointed out here, there are many ways to show context without including your work, for example: -showing motivation to why they asked a question, -indicating their own mathematical background/level, -clarifying key terms and so on.

4) Your examples show low-reputation users (users with reputation < 100), so there might be a certain stereotype of these users, such as 'asks low-quality questions', or 'sometimes spams', which is reinforced by the 'privileges' these users are denied. Unless there is a noticeable decrease in the amount of spammers, I think that these stereotypes will still hold.

These are some of my reasons as to why these questions will hold, even if you don't believe in it. In short, many people would not want to deal with 'lazy' people, and would much rather point them to links for asking/answering good questions and let them figure it out themselves.

This quote sums it all up: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

• Thank you so much for answering.
– Xam
May 29, 2017 at 18:12
• +1 for 3)${}{}$ May 29, 2017 at 21:05
• With regard to points 1 and 2: For point 1, last I checked, this was still hotly debated. I haven't been participating as much as I used to, but it didn't seem to me like opinions were going to change on this. For 2, reputation sticks around even after a question is closed. It has to be deleted for it to be reversed. May 29, 2017 at 21:31
• @Matt Samuel For 2), well low-quality content tends to be downvoted, and after 3 downvotes it will be closed and deleted after 30 days. I was a victim of not knowing this in this question (bit.ly/2s7Kp4J) which I responded to a low-quality question and eventually lost my upvotes. May 29, 2017 at 23:45
• many questions tend to be (voted for being) closed because some users spend their time downvoting and closing the new users' questions, which is boring. @Xam May 29, 2017 at 23:51
• @user1952009 I think many members of the community use downvoting as a way to filter out low quality content, in much the same way as upvoting promotes high quality content. How is this boring? May 29, 2017 at 23:53
• True. There is no need to reopen a question in which OP did not provide any context by himself not by others like in this case by @user49640 . If somebody is so interested in the question then (s)he may ask the same question with context.
– user312097
Jun 4, 2017 at 19:35

Q: Is it appropriate to close every question that doesn't show efforts and/or lacks of context?

A: Not always.

(1) Sometimes the thing to do with such a question is to give a hint. I feel a bit hesitant to say that because so many otherwise intelligent mathematicians don't understand what a hint is. Sometimes they write a sketch of a solution, meaning they include broad ideas and omit details, and then call it a "hint" instead of a "sketch". And sometimes they give a hint that would be suitable if addressing someone who understands the very thing that the poster must have failed to understand. If the reason the poster has failed to grasp the question or the answer is that the poster does not understand the concept of X, very often the poster does not know that that is the reason for the failure, but someone who knows the subject can figure it out. Often in such cases just explaining X is enough for an answer.

(2) Sometimes the thing to do is to post an answer that will be understood by the poster after they make the efforts that our conventions say they should make before posting. And sometimes when that is done, it has turned out that the poster actually did make those efforts before posting but did not know that our conventions call for including them in the question. That happens more often than you might guess.

Those who close questions for lack of context are too often quite knee-jerking about it, pulling the trigger instantly without the sometimes subtle deliberation that is often appropriate.

And the practice of conspicuously labeling the question "off topic" and then only afterwards saying it's missing context or details is uncouth and unworthy of civilized people. It's really rude. In the menu of reasons to close questions there should be a separate "Lacking context or details" item instead of going through the "Off topic" item.

• I upvoted because I largely agree with 1) and 2). But I do want to comment on the last paragraph(s). Yes, there is knee-jerking going on, but the site is self-correcting (IMO to a satisfactory degree, but you may think differently). Calling attention to the "off-topic" -message, OTOH, has the air of beating a dead horse. It has been explained in meta many times that the reason why this reason is under the "off-topic" umbrella is because that is the only customizable part in the menu. My suggested remedy is outlined in items 9 and 10 of my answer. Jun 11, 2017 at 8:26
• While we are at it. Do you think that our "How to ask" -page sufficiently guides the newbies? What would you like to add? Changing the site culture is not going to happen, at least not quickly, but my goal here is to educate the newbies so that they have a sporting chance to avoid surprises with this close reason. Or, if the newbies won't RTFM, then at least have something to link them to, when/if they fall flat on their faces. Jun 11, 2017 at 8:31
• We might even write up a separate meta thread describing the site norms. Or, more accurately, the norms of significant factions within our community. NOT with a view of debating those norms, but ONLY to inform the newbies so that they won't be surprised. Jun 11, 2017 at 8:34
• @JyrkiLahtonen : Regardless of whether debating the norms is intended, it will inevitably happen, and that is as it ought to be. Jun 11, 2017 at 20:03
• Sure, I didn' want to forbid discussion of norms. Of course we continue to debate. What I had in mind was a place where newbies could read about what to expect from other users. Conflicting "norms" should all be covered. I felt that it would be less confusing for the newbies, if the various views would be covered. Possibly the debate would take place elsewhere. I dunno. Just a thought. Jun 11, 2017 at 20:11
• BEGIN QUOTE: It has been explained in meta many times that the reason why this reason is under the "off-topic" umbrella is because that is the only customizable part in the menu. END QUOTE $${}$$ However, that could be altered by developers. If several reasonably experienced participants in m.s.e. asked developers to alter that, it would be likely to happen. Jun 11, 2017 at 20:29
• Not sure about that, I'm afraid. It was before my term, so I don't know the details of the last change (robjohn or arjafi?). IIRC a change in that part of the code would necessarily be network wide, and it may well be that math.SE is the only one suffering from this problem. Therefore meta.stackexchange.com would be the correct venue to discuss such a change. Of course, you can also try it as a feature-request here. May be one of the devs will reply and explain why/when they can/cannot do that? Jun 11, 2017 at 20:33
• @JyrkiLahtonen : If they say they can do it, will you support that? Jun 11, 2017 at 20:48
• Sure. Having to explain this oddity umpteen times is a pain in the hindquarters. Jun 11, 2017 at 20:49
• For people who stumble upon this post, I will add that there is a feature request related to the problem mentioned at the end: A feature requested for the purpose of avoiding unintentional newbie-biting. Dec 1, 2019 at 9:49

Hmm, I recently joined Stack Exchange and I'm a student learning linear algebra concepts and the proofs and such are fairly new to me. I never post assignment or homework questions (that contribute to my grade) but once in a while I've asked questions (from a textbook perhaps) that I have absolutely no idea how to solve. I won't go around asking each and every single question I have doubts in as I tend to use multiple resources such as my professors or Teaching Assistants and Math Stack Exchange for me is another source of help for me.

However, having joined for a few days, I've realised that there is a bit of disrespect for new users. A lot of people tend to just "assume" that new users are lazy. It took me time to understand that to ask a question, you must formulate it well and give proper context but I felt as though people begin to attack low reputation users fairly quickly.

I get that there might be some students trying to exploit this forum and just get an easy grade without putting in any effort but some of us just want to understand and explore mathematical concepts further and I believe students have the right to ask "dumb" questions because that's how you learn. However, if this is not the appropriate forum to ask such questions then I would ask for recommendations for such a forum where "dumb" questions may be asked without feeling prejudiced or demeaned.

• No-one will stop you from asking "dumb" questions, but by-and-large we don't want users asking questions that consist solely of a problem statement, and so we'd like some context. Context can come in many forms, among them is simply providing a reference for your question (i.e., name of the textbook and its author(s), and location within the text). You mention that you have have asked questions "from a textbook perhaps", but none of your questions to date have included this small fact, let alone any reference information for this mystery text. Jun 8, 2017 at 19:40
• @arjafi Please don't write "we" when you mean "I". As you surely know, many users disagree about context, work, etc being required in questions. Jun 8, 2017 at 19:58
• @Bill Why do you think it is too onerous to require that users provide a small extra data point like the source of their questions? Do you really have such a low opinion of students that you don't believe they are capable of this? Jun 8, 2017 at 20:10
• @arjafi Again, as a new user, I was not aware that you have to include the source to each and every question Jun 8, 2017 at 20:13
• @arjafi I never said that. This "policy" enforced by some users (and some mods) often proves extremely frustrating. They often robotically thoughtlessly apply this "policy" to close questions that could add valuable content to the site - including questions that are way beyond their level of expertise (so e.g. they have no clue how to judge many matters such as pedagogical difficulties of getting started, whether or not terms, notation etc are well-known in the field so do not require definition,etc). This has caused the site to lose many talented teachers (and continues to do so). Jun 8, 2017 at 20:21
• @Saneea Providing references serves a couple purposes. 1. It gives answerers a better idea of the asker's mathematical level, which should allow them to provide better answers. 2. Since searching for mathematical formulas is problematic, source info can allow future visitors to find these already-asked questions much more easily. Time then isn't wasted in typing up duplicate questions and/or answers. Math.se, like virtually all Stack Exchange sites, is meant to be a repository of great answers to questions. What good is a repository that no-one can find anything in? Jun 8, 2017 at 20:28
• @BillDubuque As you surely know, the requirement for some kind of context is a compromise. The policy is not an ideal compromise, but would you for example prefer that we simply disallow all homework problems. Many sites on the SE network have gone that way. When wading through these endless and pointless arguments I occasionally think that we would actually be better off if we had followed suit. Jun 8, 2017 at 20:42
• @Jyrki That's how it started out long ago - as a compromise. The problem is that many users now think it is a rigid policy to be blindly applied, not only to "homework questions" but even to questions that are so far beyond the closer's expertise that they have no hope of properly evaluating the question. Users who have barely mastered calculus are closing questions at graduate level and beyond. That's ridiculous (and destructive). As a result the baby is being flushed with the bathwater. Jun 8, 2017 at 20:48
• @Bill That I actually agree with. IMNSHO no one should vote to put on hold a question beyond their compass. But we also have some very high rep users advocating that same standards should apply to all questions. And plenty of voters, some who earned the privilege quite recently, are a bit trigger happy (or learned it from others). Item 2 in my answer. Jun 8, 2017 at 20:57
• "there is a bit of disrespect for new users" Care to provide evidence in support of this statement? If somebody else states that their feeling is the opposite, where does that leave us in terms of rational discussion? "A lot of people tend to just "assume" that new users are lazy" Idem. "It took me time to understand that to ask a question, you must formulate it well and give proper context" And this only shows you started to use the site without bothering to understand how it works. Not something to boast about, don't you think?
– Did
Jun 9, 2017 at 6:30
• @Did An example of "there is a bit of disrespect for new users" is shown by your comment itself :) Jun 9, 2017 at 17:43
• @SaneeaMustafa Then we must have very different definitions of disrespect. (Anyway, your comment makes me doubt that you are interested in a serious discussion of the points you raised yourself.)
– Did
Jun 9, 2017 at 19:50
• It seems as though nobody really is trying to understand this different point of view. My apologies for raising a concern that most of the professional and savvy mathematicians over here tend to disagree with. Perhaps I'll take my questions elsewhere to a more welcoming community. Nevertheless, thank you for this debate! It was an eye opener :) Jun 9, 2017 at 20:03
• @SaneeaMustafa As you have shown interest in this, please check out the How to ask. Undoubtedly you already did so before posting for the first time, but now you may have a better chance of putting it in perspective. The reason I ask is that that page should give the newbies enough information to avoid disrespectful reactions. Do you think it does? I still advice them to spend a couple of days browsing their favorite tags to get a feel of the site culture and norms, but I'm not sure they follow my advice. Jun 10, 2017 at 17:19
• A new user who studies neither the site norms nor the How to ask page IMHO deserves the advice to RTFM. We are trying to educate them, but can always try and do a better job. Jun 10, 2017 at 17:21

I just want to state my opinion on this. DO NOT close every single question lacking context! This is why first question reviews exist and comments allow others to say, "Please, provide more context." Give the OP a chance to edit his/her post to include such content and improve their efforts to ask the question. However, if the OP does refuse to do so, yes, do vote to close the post due to the lack of effort and context put into it. Good questions get good answers, and in order to get good answers, you have to give good questions. Good questions have effort put into them and good context. See one of my questions here; this is the most "popular" question I have asked.

But, you have to realize that some people may be new to Math.SE. For example, the OP of the first question you referred to just joined Math.SE, so he should've probably been more informed of that. As for the OPs of the others, I see where you are getting at. But the bottom line is, give people a chance before actually trying to close the questions!

• You make it sound as if closing/putting on hold the question and giving a chance to improve were mutually exclusive. While in actual fact it is rather the opposite. A vote to close is precisely a request to improve. I do agree that in practice, especially for new user it can be more welcoming and easier to handle to hold back on the voting, but still the point stands. The system as designed is: put on hold, improve, reopen. Of course if OP is quick enough to improve before closure kicks in, all the better.
– quid Mod
Jun 1, 2017 at 0:35
• I recognize that especially for new users, this might not be quite so clear and it might seem unwelcoming. And, yes, sometimes one might hold back on votes. Yet to let questions just linger around with just a comment also has drawbacks. Often some will still attempt to answer, and then frequently it's all moot and the low quality Q&A will stick around.
– quid Mod
Jun 1, 2017 at 0:35
• Oh yeah you're right. That just contradicts when I said good questions give good answers. I still see your point, though. Jun 1, 2017 at 0:39