Is deleting a question while it is still on hold too quick?

Question

This is a follow-up (not a duplicate) to an old question on Meta:

Are we too trigger-happy about deleting (relatively) new posts?

I have noticed recently that there are lots of on-hold questions being deleted. Here is an incomplete list:

• [Deleted] How can we decompose $A=2x^2+2y^2+5xy+5x+7y+3$
• [Deleted] Proving bijectivity by finding “the inverse”.
• [Deleted] Math inequality …please help
• [One deleted vote Deleted] How many ways are there to place 16 identical balls in 4 distinguishable urns such that each urn contains at least 2 balls?
• [One deleted vote Deleted] Probability of one of five events occurring
• [One deleted vote Deleted] How many functions $f: \{1,2,\ldots , n\} \rightarrow \{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ satisfy $f(x+1)-f(x) \in \{0,1\}$
• [One deleted vote Deleted] Prove that algebra $\mathcal{A}$ is $\sigma$-algebra if and only if
• [One deleted vote Deleted] Boundedness of given parametric functions
• [One deleted vote Deleted] Symbolic estimation of the Logarithm function
• [One deleted vote Deleted] Summation of series, further maths A level
• [One deleted vote Deleted] Using $y$ instead of $x$ in an equation for solving area between two curves
• [One deleted vote Deleted] Is the Feigenbaum bifurcation parameter 1.4081?
• [One deleted vote Deleted] Floor function of $\,dx$

Such deletion could be rather quick if it were coordinated by folks in the CRUDE room. IMHO, deleting an on-hold question makes the notice such as "Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking." rather useless.

Question: Is deleting a question while it is still on hold too quick?

Answer 1

There's a lot to process here, from the question (and the examples therein), the comments and the answers. I'll try to divide this answer in order to organize my thoughts.

First and foremost:

1. Is deleting a question while it is still on hold too quick?

This general question does not have a clear answer, mainly because people have different priorities. Risking being too reductionist, I think there are people that prioritize cleanness of the site, and there are people who prioritize a welcoming environment to the site. Both are valid points of view which should not conflict, but usually do for obvious reasons.

Talking about my point of view, I frequently oscillate between two thoughts:

1: Most things are non-salvageable, and thus it is a waste of time to try and attempt to heal everything.

2: I do not want to exclude people from a group simply because of lack of acquaintance with said group.

To be clear, this is in reality a false dichotomy. But in terms of large-scale behaviour, it is a good approximation, in the sense that if you want to significantly erase bad content you must allow yourself not to enter too personally in them (as reference, see discussions about downvote explanations: one of the arguments is that necessary comments would create a barrier for downvoting). But an answer must be given, so I will get to the second point.

2. The examples.

Personally, I think some of the examples were harshly treated. So, with respect to those examples: yes, I think the deletion was rather quick. I know that MSE's informal policies change with time, but my very first question would probably be on that list if it was made today (I think it is quite similar to this and this examples, and many others). If I could recall my train of thought in the time, my conception of mathematics was of a frigid and formal discipline. If my question was well-stated, clear and succint (and dry), it would be good. MSE helped me in part in understanding how context and communication is important to mathematics. Specifically, that single and simple $4$-word question from Did in the comments may have resulted in huge consequences. If he said something like: "We are not here to do your homework" like I've already seen people saying, I would probably refrain from asking anymore (curiously, it was not a homework). If my question was hastly put on hold and deleted, it would have probably been worse. This may happen more often than not, and this worries me a bit.

3. In general.

Being honest, there is a lot of garbage in this site. It is good that we have people who are willing to basically work for free for the maintenance of this site's well-being. In general, I personally think that there should not exist a time gap for deletion, and it is good to be this way.

But I think that it is worth mentioning that if you spend too much time on a job, your patience will eventually suffer from that. Seeing repetitive patterns will inevitably make you conflate things. It is natural instinct. For instance, you may see any question which does not provide what the person has tried as worthy of deletion. You will look at a question without LaTeX with disregard. It is good to bring this kind of discussion up so we can refresh our decision making. As is clear in the examples, there are a number of people who are quite engaged in the process of deletion/closure etc. I am grateful for their work, a work that I only occasionally do. My only concern is that if I, who do not partake in deletions so oftenly, have fallen for those "sins" of bias, I think it is not unreasonable to say that this may happen to those that do this recursively. The thing that I ask of them is only to listen with open ears the concerns of people who are not that engaged with deletion, and to consider things like those that I said in the previous "point".

I think it is also worth saying that I personally think that the deletions/closure etc as done today are good in general. This whole discussion is about improving them even further. We have a good site, with good community and with a good purpose. This leads me to my last point.

4. An important observation.

This is a little off-topic with respect to the question, but pertinent due to the comments etc.

I feel there is a lot of hostility sometimes in meta. I understand that for some of us, this website is a very significant part of their life and thus we hold it to heart, leading us to feel threatened or even attacked when our point of view regarding it is challenged somehow. However, I think that it is important to notice that:

If someone comes to meta to discuss, they want the same thing as you: to improve the site. They are not your enemy, they are your ally.

Different points of view should not change that.

Answer 2

I agree that questions that are put on hold should not be deleted too quickly.

Users might come back and improve their questions. This is not often, but I've seen occasionally users putting a lot more efforts into the question after it's put on hold. It could be that they do not find it necessary at first to put more effort, since they found their ideas going nowhere.

On the other hand, I do not see what is gained by deleting those questions quickly, instead of waiting for sometimes.

Personally I will, in general, wait at least for two days before voting to delete. I do not expect users to visit MSE and to be responsive continuously. Even for myself: I do have my phone connected to MSE at all time, but I am able to do some serious editing/voting only when I am in front of a computer. So waiting at least one day before voting to delete seem reasonable to me.

There are exceptions: I will delete immediately Spam, on going contest questions, and when the questioners clearly are not improving the questions (e.g. they wrote "I've found my errors, thanks" or "this site is not friendly, I am NOT coming back again!" or they showed in the comment there is no way they are able to even understand they are asking)

Answer 3

Nasse-setä is very angry.

While I largely agree with the quality standards of C.R.U.D.E. activists, and won't really shed tears for the listed threads, the speed of deletion makes me uncomfortable:

• For the purposes of discouraging low-quality questions (and the rep-farming answers) the act of putting the question on hold is sufficient. This step should be done as swiftly as possible, and the use of chatroom resources to collect links to doubtful material is a great tool in facilitating this.
• Deletion, on the other hand, is a different animal. True, it is clear that many questions cannot be salvaged, and are best disposed of. I am not discussing such threads. But, I fail to see the need to delete potentially salvageable questions speedily. What's the rush? Giving a bona fide opportunity to fix a bad question feels like a decent thing to do. Because a newbie asker may be shell-shocked, they may require time to absorb what just happened. And even more time to digest the pieces of advice. They may have gone to bed already, planning to return a day later. 3 hours is not gonna be enough for such a user.
• But, I agree with user21820 in the cases, where the asker is a 3-year veteran of the site. Such an asker is IMO more likely just testing waters, trying to locate yet another rep-farmer willing to do their homework.

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• I recommend a minimum of 24-hour grace window for askers to improve the question.
• But, if there's a reopen/close war, I wouldn't restart that 24 hour clock. IMO it should start ticking from the first closure.
• All this disagreement was foreseeable. If only we had decided not to allow homework questions to begin with. Sigh. We have made, IMO, a very good attempt to be accomodating. Almost succeeded, but without a binding (i.e. something e.g. we diamond mods would agree to enforce) code/policy for homework questions, the problem persists. If I only could turn back the clock :-(

Answer 4

My feeling is that quick deletion, as organized by folks in the CRUDE chatroom is a bit too quick. As a teacher of mathematics, I too am irritated that some folks get away with cheating here and I have participated in my fair share of deletions. Ultimately, I have to ask, though - does quick deletion do more harm or good?

According to this Main Meta Page which is linked from this math.stackexchange help page:

for questions, a post that no longer adds anything to the site should be deleted. Basically, this includes most closed questions that cannot be improved and reopened.

Unless it's clearly an exact duplicate, I think it is rarely the case that a Problem Statement Questions (or PSQs, as some call them) cannot be improved.

Also, it's hardly the case that there is overwhelming community consensus on what to do with PSQs. While proposals nearly five years ago that PSQs be banned or at least discouraged received a lot of support, there was still a significant minority of folks who felt otherwise. Furthermore, those previous discussions don't really deal with deletion, but focus on down voting.

Furthermore, there should be dissent on this issue because PSQs have the advantage of being concise and mathematical. They are not chatty, open-ended, or subjective as the help center specifically advises users to avoid. Frankly, requests to an already confused user that they show work often makes the question more chatty and less clear.

One potential positive that arises from deletion is that it helps organize the site into a useful reference resource. While I do think this is a valid point, I also believe it's truth is greatly exaggerated. Frankly, vote count correlates rather poorly with post quality. I think it very unlikely that the quality of the enormous amount of information here will ever rival the quality of the well edited textbooks in a library.

Taking all this into account, my preference would be to see the pace of question deletion slowed.

Answer 5

For some threads it is pretty clear from the get-go that there is no real use keeping and trying to improve them.

Sure one can turn every thread into something interesting, but for some it just seems like a poor allocation of resources.

Sometimes deletion is just fine, and everybody (including the original poster) can move on to more interesting things.

(I did not check all the examples. The above is a general statement.)

Answer 6

Firstly, your question seems to be based on a false premise. Questions have to be first put on hold before they can be deleted. Secondly, questions that are on hold cannot be deleted quickly unless they have too negative score. I don't know the exact details of this, but this mechanism already prevents questions from being deleted unless the community downvotes them sufficiently. (This provides a barrier to deletion, and there is no corresponding barrier to undeletion.)

I consider it reasonable to wait if the asker is a new user. But take a look at your own examples:

The first question was a zero-context question posted by a user that has been a member for nearly 3 years with over 1000 rep, who has consistently posted equally poor quality questions; see the most recent five: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

The second question was also a zero-context question posted by a 3-year-old user, who certainly knows how to post good questions, so your implicit suggestion that the asker would not know the reason for deletion is moot in this case.

The third question was posted by a new user who did not put in any effort into the question despite the instructions that pop up right before every new user gets to post a question, telling them to use LaTeX and how to ask a good question. Observe that this user saw the close-banner and had plenty of time to improve the question, but did not, and the question was deleted 3 hours later.

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Let me emphasize strongly that it is the responsibility of the asker to put effort into his/her own question. This site does not owe anyone anything; it is already giving free mathematical help to those who wish to learn. Someone here said (roughly) that a student ought to put in the same effort into a question that he/she would if the recipient was the teacher. If not, the student is just like treating Math SE as a dumping ground for questions that are too lousy to ask of the teacher. I think there have been many variants of this analogy, like here and here.

See here for the 'official' site policy on how to ask a good question, which I believe is prominently shown to every new user on the Ask-A-Question page itself.

And, by the way, there is no way to maintain site quality if we leave junk lying around all the time. Eventually someone has to do the dirty cleanup work.