# Requests for Reopen & Undeletion Votes (volume 07/2018 - today)

The purpose of this thread is to help focus the attention of the community on posts that may require reopen and undeletion votes. A request should be posted as an answer below (one request per answer).

Some guidelines:

• Please be polite, and respect the many different viewpoints in our diverse community. This goes for the person making the request as well as those commenting on it.

• There is a reopen queue. Please wait until a post has gone through this queue, before posting here. Notice that the first edit after the question was put on-hold pushes the question into reopen review queue, if the edit was done within 5 days of closure. So does a reopen vote. (If the review has already been finished, it is shown on the timeline of the question.) In doubt, wait 24 hours after the last substantive action.

• To inform readers of the current (and past) states of the targeted post, please add once the request resulted in some action the information Reopened or Undeleted at the start. (If it the action is undone, add this too, like Reopened, reclosed.)

• Do not only post a request, like "request reopening of ". Instead make a case for your concern. Yet keep in mind that it can be easier to get your request handled if you try to frame in a away that takes the feedback the post received into account in a positive way rather then seeking confrontation. Also, try to improve the post before posting here.

• In case of "small" requests, like one missing vote, it can make sense to ask in chat instead of posting here. The room CRUDE is a reasonable place for such requests. The same guidelines apply there.

Earlier versions of this thread that served as a model:

Undeleted, reopened

Please undelete and reopen this post:

How to show $$13\left(x^{2}+1\right)+\sqrt{2\left(x^{4}+1\right)}+62 x-\frac{45\left(x^{2}-1\right)}{\ln x}>0$$ for $$x\in(0,1)$$

Context for the question was added upon request by the asker, which has been lifted to the post.

Undeleted, reopened

Please undelete and reopen this post: How can one integrate $$\int\frac{1}{(x+1)^4(x^2+1)} dx$$?

OP wants to calculate this integral. He/she is not asking for a solution to this integral per se but states in the post his/her frustration on partial fraction decomposition (PFD) of the integrand. OP even has attempted to use something else (u-substitution) to solve this problem. Benard's answer addresses the difficulties of PFD without divulging the complete solution to OP.

Undeleted, closed, deleted, undeleted, deleted

I think there's a consensus that we undelete questions when they are deleted by the user who posted them after someone else has posted an answer (see, for example, the comment here. In accordance with that consensus, I propose undeletion of this post:

Solutions to $$\sum_{j=0}^k r_j^2+3r_j+2\equiv 0 \mod p$$

Now I'll own up that I'm the one who posted the answer to the question. My answer was exceedingly terse, and came out of a review with the note, "This does not provide an answer to the question (and so on, and so forth)." But it does provide an answer. The question was to prove or disprove that there are no solutions to a certain equation (congruence, actually, but never mind), and my answer gave a solution.

• Is this actually a consensus? – Did Jul 23 '18 at 12:30
• @Did, if you look at the previous edition of this thread, you'll find that in April-May, GNU Supporter posted 4 requests for undeletion, all on the grounds that OP had deleted a question after receiving an answer, and all four questions were undeleted. – Gerry Myerson Jul 23 '18 at 12:51
• Yes, and?   – Did Jul 23 '18 at 18:11
• @Did For what it's worth, I have the same impression about the consensus. Preventing an asker from covering up their own question seems to be something the community values, even if it's closed later. – user296602 Jul 23 '18 at 18:35
• @T.Bongers (and also Gerry Myerson): I think that there is a moderate consensus that it is bad form to ask a question, get an answer, then delete the question. It belies an ignorance of the functioning of the site (i.e. questions are supposed to be helpful to everyone, not just the one person asking the question). However, in this particular case, the question is of pretty low quality, and should be closed and deleted (in my opinion). It seems like a waste of resources to have opened it back up again... – Xander Henderson Jul 23 '18 at 19:00
• For what it's worth, I have expanded my answer to the question on main. – Gerry Myerson Jul 24 '18 at 0:34
• "For what it's worth, I have expanded my answer to the question on main." On this topic, my understanding is that the consensus is that a good (or even great) answer is not really enough to justify keeping a poor question around. This and this are relevant. – Xander Henderson Jul 24 '18 at 13:27
• @Xander, the highest-voted answers and comments on your first link hardly support your understanding. The second link, even there there is considerable support for not deleting questions with good answers. I'm not convinced there is, was, or ever will be a consensus on this issue. A majority, maybe, but no consensus. – Gerry Myerson Jul 24 '18 at 21:31
• @GerryMyerson I think you and I must be reading very different answers. In answer to the question of whether bad questions with good answers should be preserved, my reading of the top three answers ((1), (2), (3)) suggest that it might be worth protecting a poor question if it hosts an excellent answer. – Xander Henderson Jul 24 '18 at 22:54
• On the question of upvoting poor questions with good answers, the top voted answer is this one, essentially "I don't do it, but there could be an argument in favor of it." The second answer is similar, with the idea being that a good answer should be preserved if it might be helpful for others in the future. – Xander Henderson Jul 24 '18 at 22:55
• In both cases, it seems clear to me that the consensus is that it might be reasonable to preserve a poor question if it attracted a really good, useful, generally helpful answer. Again, a good answer (or possibly even a great answer) is not, by itself, enough to preserve a poor question. – Xander Henderson Jul 24 '18 at 22:58
• Finally, I note that I made my initial comment in response to your assertion that you have improved your answer. Are you further asserting that the improvements created something that is of such lasting value that it will be beneficial beyond asking that poor question? Despite the fact that this question and answer have been the topic of discussion here for a couple of days, your answer has not attracted any upvotes... – Xander Henderson Jul 24 '18 at 22:59
• @Xander, I'm not in it for the upvotes. I objected to a user posting a question and then deleting it when it got an answer, as I agree with a moderator that such an action is an abuse of the site. Once the question was undeleted, I took the opportunity to improve my answer, in response to a comment from another user. What's wrong with that? I'm not asserting anything about the lasting value of the question or the answer, other than the answer being fuller now than it was. The answer may help someone coming along who is interested in sums of two squares modulo a prime. Fire away. – Gerry Myerson Jul 24 '18 at 23:30
• @GerryMyerson: it isn't pleasant to see one's own answer deleted, but in this case the question is clearly not up to many users' standards, so I think it is not surprising to see it deleted. At this point, the question is no longer deleted by the OP, but by several other users. – Carl Mummert Aug 5 '18 at 21:06
• @Carl, it isn't pleasant to see any answer with nonzero mathematical content deleted. More to the point, I would not have put the question up for undeletion, had it been deleted by votes of users. My objection was to OP abusing the site by deleting the question after getting an answer. I thought that was clear. – Gerry Myerson Aug 5 '18 at 23:09

Reopened

Please consider reopening Minimal surfaces under conformal parametrizations - proof verification

It appears to have been closed after the user vandalised their question (rolling back the question would seem like the better approach, which I've done) and appears to have plenty of context and be a reasonable question asking for help.

Reopened

Prove $\lim_{z \rightarrow z_o} f(z) \in \mathbb{C}$ if $\lim_{z \rightarrow z_o} (z-z_0) f(z) = 0$

I made a new question, where I tried to be as clear and narrow as possible.

Reopened

There have been at least five questions asking how to prove instances of the general proposition $$\log_m(m + 1) > \log_n(n + 1)$$ for integers $$n > m > 1$$:

1. How to know if $$\log_78 > \log_89$$ without using a calculator? (3 May 2012), with an exemplary answer by user22805.

There have been at least three other questions asking to prove inequalities of the form $$\log_a{b} > \log_c{d}$$ for integers $$b > a > 1$$ and $$d > c > 1$$:

There has also been at least one more complex question in the same broad category:

Most recently, the following question was posted, but it was quickly closed as a duplicate (I confess to being one of those who voted to close it):

10. Comparing logarithms with different bases (23 Oct 2018).

The close message for question 10 reads:

This question already has an answer here: How to compare logarithms $$\log_4 5$$ and $$\log_5 6$$? 6 answers

But the only method used to answer a previous question (1-9) that can also be applied to the present question (10) is to find positive integers $$m, n$$ such that $$b^n > a^m$$ and $$d^n < c^m$$ (as in Eudoxus's theory of proportion), so that $$\log_ab > \tfrac{m}{n} > \log_cd$$.

In a comment (which has now been incorporated into the text of the question), the questioner showed that he was aware of this method, and had already used it to answer his own question. He continues:

However, that method doesn't work for every example, and I wonder if there's a easier way to solve this?

Strictly speaking, any logarithm comparison question could be answered in this way. But that is not always very practical, because one one has to search for suitable values of $$m$$ and $$n$$, which may be quite large. Some previous answers state or imply the general rule that $$\log_a{b} > \log_c{d}$$ if $$\tfrac{b}{a} > \tfrac{d}{c}$$ and $$a < b$$, but that rule does not apply in this case. It is interesting to ask if some other rule might be applied, eliminating the need for a possibly haphazard search for $$m, n$$. Failing that, ad hoc solutions to the present problem are also of interest.

Question 10 meets MSE's selection criteria, so it ought to be reopened.

• The question lacks contract in any event. Most importantly: why were the specific constamts in the problems chosen? If the problem is about arbitrary constants, it should be rewritten to say so. If the OP was already aware of a method to solve the problem, that context should also be in the post. Overall the post does.noy seem to demonstrate much effort to write a good post. – Carl Mummert Oct 28 '18 at 16:19
• @Carl On that basis, Diophantus would have a hard time posting a question here! Where, in MSE's rules, does it say that every question must be framed in the most general terms possible? What is wrong with asking a question about particular numbers? Especially as no-one has (yet) posted a general answer or a general question covering this particular case. Finally, even if it were granted (purely for the sake of argument) that an experienced user ought to have asked a more elaborate question, shouldn't a new user be cut some slack? – Calum Gilhooley Oct 28 '18 at 16:28
• @Carl Also, it was closed as duplicate, and my point is that it is not a duplicate. The close message is a false statement, and the close decision should be reversed. (Of course, anyone can also vote to close it for another reason, and no such person need feel obliged to vote for reopening.) – Calum Gilhooley Oct 28 '18 at 16:34
• !Calum: there's no problem posting a question with specific numbers - but it is up to the OP to include adequate context, and the reason for choosing seemingly arbitrary numbers is (in my opinion) part of that context. If this was asked person to person at a department tea, we would expect the asker to say something about the numbers involved. The OP should be encouraged to improve the problem, they have plenty of "slack" to do so. – Carl Mummert Oct 28 '18 at 21:19
• I think my guilty conscience over this has now been assuaged. :) – Calum Gilhooley Oct 29 '18 at 0:36

Deleted by a moderator

This question was closed and deleted with the reason given "This question is missing context or other detail". However the author of the question explained both his educational background (he is an undergraduate) and his motivation for the question (it was information that wasn't covered in his degree).

This information is sufficient context to give an answer, indeed I can't think of any further context that a person asking the question could add that would result in a better answer.

• The body does not even contain the question. That question-post is poor, and the thread of very limited value overall. The answers being pretty terse and not giving enough detail. // Added: Given the comment below I'll add that it was not I that deleted it. – quid May 9 at 6:59
• As far as I can tell, if a post was deleted by a moderator - like in this case - the deletion cannot be reversed by regular users. (Of course, voting your posts still can show to which extent users support undeletion - and if there is some support, perhaps moderators might have a look at the the question again.) – Martin Sleziak May 9 at 6:59
• @quid can you explain what is poor about the question? Broadly speaking pen and paper methods of factoring numbers is a subject that the site should have coverage of. – Q the Platypus May 9 at 23:32
• I already mentioned one shortcoming. Further and more drastically, the question does not contain any relevant thought of the OP or even just explanation what they want that information for. For example, do they realize that one can easily recognize that some number are not prime? How would they approach the problem for two digit numbers? Or something else, would all make the question better. That said, the question would arguably be saveable. But what for? The answers are low quality. I'd prefer somebody, say my students, won't find any information here rather than those answers. – quid May 10 at 9:55
• Fortunately similar information is available in other and better threads. In my opinion, the site is quite simply better without this thread. – quid May 10 at 9:57

Undeleted, reopened

Please consider undeleting this old post: Show that a function $$f:P(X)\to P(X)$$ preserving the subset relation has a fixed point

It was created on Sep 17 '16, has two good answers.

• It seems to be a special case of this question, and Aloizio's anwer in fact answers the general question. So if the goal is to preserve answers, the logical thing to do would be to move them there. – Arnaud D. Jun 28 at 13:48
• It seems to me the Question at issue here has the more general formulation (it does not require an "increasing" function). In any case I've voted to reopen as the Question at issue meets my threshold for context (and it otherwise also on-topic). – hardmath Jun 30 at 19:45
• I disagree with your assertion that the question has two good answers. It has one good answer, and a hint. The question itself is not good at all. I am content to see the question left undeleted, but I see no reason to reopen it. Arnaud D.'s suggestion is, I think, preferable. – Xander Henderson Jun 30 at 23:51
• "I am content to see the question left undeleted." Well, that is what my proposal is. I agree that the question itself was not good enough and thus I did not ask for reopening. @Martin Sleziak has added useful information to the post. (Thanks!) Also, Aloizio's good answer mentions at the beginning "the nice answer by @Brian". – Jack Jul 1 at 1:47

Undeleted, deleted, undeleted, reopened

Please consider undeleting this post: What is the formula of this angle?

There is a well written and well-received answer to this interesting question.

Undeleted, deleted, undeleted

Please undelete and consider reopening this post: Show this equation has every positive integer as solutions

OP did give his thoughts. NOT a no-context question. And there are two good answers.

Undeleted, deleted, undeleted

Please consider undeleting this post: How to evaluate $$\lim_{x \to 3} (x^2-5x+4)^{x-3}$$, which is clearly not a zero-effort question.

• You say that the question should be opened because it is "clearly not a zero-effort question." This seems to imply that the question was closed because it "lacks effort". However, "lacks effort" is not one of the close reasons used on MSE. Indeed, I see that question was closed for "lacking context". For example, a description of what theory the asker is familiar with and what course they are taking. Are they expecting a computation involving $\varepsilon$s and $\delta$s? L'Hospital's rule? What? The question should be deleted. – Xander Henderson Aug 15 at 12:31
• Moreover, examining the comments attached to that question, it is not even clear where the function being discussed is meant to be defined. Is it a real function with a very "hole-y" domain? or a complex function, in which case one needs to consider branches of the logarithm? It is not a good question. – Xander Henderson Aug 15 at 12:34

Please consider undeleting and reopening this elementary question: On proving $$\sum_{k=1}^{2^n+1} \frac{1}{k} > \frac{n}{2}$$

OP had his/her thoughts on the problem and also added an attempt for verification in the post after interaction in comments with others. This question has also been edited.

• Did you check to see whether it's a duplicate? Looks to me like the kind of question that would have been asked before. – Gerry Myerson Aug 23 at 12:20
• @GerryMyerson: I can only find a similar one. Since I have a very narrow definition of duplicate, I don't consider it as a duplicate to the mentioned one. Others may probably find closer one. One may close it as a duplicate if one does find one. But I would object the strong action of deletion of this post. – Jack Aug 23 at 18:02
• Asker account deleted, answer a brief hint, the argument definitely on the site numerous times, the specific variant a bit artificial. Why in the world should we keep that? – quid Aug 23 at 21:08
• @quid Why the account deleted is a 'point to count' to support the deletion? – elli saba Aug 23 at 21:59
• @Isa sometimes arguments are made along the lines of: "Maybe the post is not great, but OP made an effort and we should not discourage them via deletion." There are also glimpses of that in this meta post. Once the account is gone that caries rather less wait. Differently, it's not so much that it's a point for deletion, but it's a point less against deletion. – quid Aug 23 at 22:08
• @quid I don't get it. Your previous comment suggested like 4 'bad' things about the post, so why to keep that. – elli saba Aug 23 at 22:21
• @Isa I asked why we would want to keep the post. A common argument given is that we keep it not to penalize the person that asked it. This argument does not really apply in this case. Another argument is that the answer is good; Again does not apply. Still another argument we keep it for others users. But it seems unlikely to be useful, as the argument in principle is on the site numerous times and the specific version is a bit strange in a non interesting way. Thus, I still am at a loss why anyone would bother to keep that particular post. Surely there are plenty of better deleted posts. – quid Aug 23 at 22:30
• @quid I may agree with you the day I had 10k :) with your mentioned points: answer a brief hint, the argument definitely on the site numerous times, the specific variant a bit artificial. Except your first point: account deleted. I don't see any possibility of me agreeing with that point. – elli saba Aug 23 at 23:02
• Not exactly the same, but the question seems rather close to Prove this inequality: $\frac n2 \le \frac{1}{1}+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{3}+...+\frac1{2^n - 1} \le n$. However, it's not suitable for merging - the bounds for sum are different, the other post has an answer rather similar to the one already posted. – Martin Sleziak Aug 29 at 6:58

Undeleted, deleted, undeleted, deleted, undeleted

I nominate Optimization problem for routes for undeletion because the question asker self-deleted his question shortly after receiving an answer.

Undeleted, reopened

Please undelete and reopen this post: Evaluate this limit: $$\lim_{n \rightarrow \infty} \frac{n\sin n}{2n^2 - 1}$$

This post is by no means missing context. OP clearly stated at the beginning what he/she tried and where he/she got stuck. This post has also a detailed answer by a 50K+ user.

• It might be worth noting that unfortunately that so-called detailed answer completely ignores the provided context, in that sense it's a rather poor answer, but arguably that's tangential. I'd tend to agree that this question does show reasonable context. If we take the context into account, likely it's a dupe. – quid Sep 23 at 15:52
• Instead of saying "what goes wrong with my thoughts" or "how can I go on with my original approach", OP explicitly stated that "Any help will be appreciated". And @Clement C. helped this user by directly giving an argument. Not a poor answer, and there have four people considering it good. This post is an extremely poor choice for deletion. – Jack Sep 23 at 15:58
• quid does make a fair point that an answer showing how OP could go on with the original approach may be more useful for the asker. One could add such an answer after this post is reopened. – Jack Sep 23 at 16:06
• Are you trying to make a point that because somebody collected 50k+ points by violating site policies and doing others homework for them, then that gives their opinion added weight somehow? I guess selling dung to horseflies is a lucrative business, but it does not make a good math site. – Jyrki Lahtonen Sep 30 at 4:56

Undeleted, deleted, undeleted, reopened, closed as duplicate, deleted, undeleted, deleted, undeleted

Please consider to undelete this question.

The OP brings some background about the problem and is just trying to find an easy solution. The one provided by me looks quite unknown (as it seems from the comments and the answers) thus I think it can be of future help if the question is undeleted.

• It's good form to disclose that one has an answer on the post oneself. – quid Aug 15 at 21:00
• This question is a duplicate of many other questions on MSE. While I don't think that it is worth keeping (it brings nothing new to the table), if it is going to be kept, it should be closed as a duplicate. I left comments indicating a couple of potential dupe targets. – Xander Henderson Aug 17 at 15:05
• On the contrary I believe it brings something new to the table. My solution is different than any other from all the linked posts. – Zacky Aug 19 at 20:24
• @Zacky In that case your answer will stand its ground as an answer to the duplicate target as well, and you might consider relocating it there! Just by posting a new answer, the thread of your choice will be bumped to the front page, meaning that many viewers will see it and be able to vote it. <- This could be my template reply to all the users who are sad about a deletion of a duplicate. They can easily save their work this way! – Jyrki Lahtonen Aug 30 at 18:19
• "Partial fraction without defraction for an integral" What the heck does that mean? Is defraction really a word? Why has no one edited that title to something intelligible? – Gerry Myerson Aug 30 at 23:00
• @GerryMyerson I think that no one had edited the title into something intelligible because no one actually knows what the asker intended. That is part of the problem with the question (aside from the fact that it is a duplicate). – Xander Henderson Aug 31 at 14:17
• @Zacky Honestly, I think that Jyrki's advice is good advice. Indeed, I think that your answer would be a better fit for one of the other questions, if for no other reason than the current question specifically asks about partial fraction decomposition, while the others don't. Your answer would be a better fit for a different question. – Xander Henderson Aug 31 at 14:18
• @XanderHenderson something looks off. You said that it brings nothing new to the table and it's not worth to be kept, you even ranted on how my answer isn't a "pedagogical". Are you sure that you honestly believe that is a good advice? – Zacky Sep 1 at 8:52
• I also wrote in my pre-edit for OP: "Since this is just for your training, here's a more different approach for it. If it doesn't fit for you, I will delete it (it doesn't use any partial fractions)", when OP commented I think I received a positive feedback about it from OP.// Indeed it doesn't answer the exact question, but another answer (which got accepted by OP) shows a way with partial fractions. I only posted my answer after I saw it, and after the comments (from some high-rep users) who encouraged OP to not look for a better way? – Zacky Sep 1 at 8:58

Reopened

I asked a question yesterday: Coupon collector's problem: mean and variance in number of coupons to be collected to complete a set

This asks for the mean and variance of the coupon collector's problem in the general case when the coupons have unequal probability. It has been marked as a duplicate of this one: Expected time to roll all 1 through 6 on a die

My edit clearly explains that I'm asking for the variance in the general case, while the question it is a supposed duplicate of asks only for the mean and that too in the special case of the coupons having equal probabilities.

So, the first question is not a duplicate of the one linked to it for sure. For this reason, I wanted the duplicate tag to be removed if possible.

I did ask a similar question myself in another post a few weeks ago here: Coupon collectors problem: variance calculation missing a term.

However, I wish to delete that post (the only answer there is my own) and want people to refer to this one since it is much more comprehensive.

In any case, the current question linked there is clearly more limited in scope along multiple dimensions.

• I suggest that in the interests of transparency you edit a link to your earlier question into the body of the newer question, and vice versa. – Gerry Myerson Nov 28 at 21:25
• @GerryMyerson I'm going to delete the other question, so this might not be necessary. – Rohit Pandey Nov 28 at 21:34

Reopened

Please consider reopening Indian Mathematicians. The question was closed as off-topic, apparently because of the existence of the History of Science and Mathematics site.

As I pointed out in a comment, first, questions about history of mathematics are on-topic here. The tag has almost two thousand questions and a decent amount of recent activity.

Second, the quality of many interactions at the HSM site is sadly rather poor (I was very enthusiastic about it when it started, so this poor quality quite bothers me), and it may end up being a disservice to send this question there.

(I would actually love to see the quality at that site to raise uniformly, and hope it happens relatively soon. But that is another matter.)

• I think at least the formulation of the question should be clarified a bit before it is reopened. The first answerer already misunderstood it. – quid Aug 30 '18 at 21:11
• Fair enough. I'll do a slight edit. – Andrés E. Caicedo Aug 30 '18 at 21:16
• I had decided to do an edit myself. Sorry for the confusion. I'll check back in one or two hours. If it's still closed then I'll give the final vote(s). This allows also for further editing. – quid Aug 30 '18 at 21:19
• No problem. I gave the edit a second pass. (And thank you.) – Andrés E. Caicedo Aug 30 '18 at 21:22

Undeleted, deleted, undeleted, deleted, undeleted, reopened, closed, locked, unlocked, deleted, undeleted, locked (for historical significance).

I think this question should be reopened. Thank you!

The original poster looked for the possibility to use the substitution $$t=\tan\frac{x}{2}$$ and he got a number of solutions.

By the way, the first comment of Lord Shark the Unknown is nothing. At the least, it gives a very complicated solution which the topic starter tried to apply but without success.

• Quote from the question: "I tried tangent half-angle substitution but it became too complicated." First comment on main: "Try half-angle substitution, but with a little more determination. – Lord Shark the Unknown Aug 9 at 9:54" Answer by the OP: [DNE]. – Did Sep 8 '18 at 22:17
• "By the way, the first comment of Lord Shark the Unknown it's nothing" Pfff... – Did Sep 8 '18 at 22:44
• And now there's a rollback war. – Gerry Myerson Oct 1 '18 at 12:35
• This question feels like a joke that everyone gets but me. (1) Why is this question particularly bad? The OP said they tried the obvious thing but to no avail. Presumably they made a mistake, but so what? That doesn't invalidate the question. (2) Why is there such a fierce edit/close/delete war? The question is 2 months old - let it rest!!! – user1729 Oct 12 '18 at 17:11
• Rollback to Revision 9 by Alex Francisco, rollback to revision 10 by Michael Rozenberg, rollback to 9 by Alex, back to 12 by Michael, to 9 by Alex, to 14 by Michael, to 9 by Alex, to 16 by Michael. Crazy! – Gerry Myerson Oct 15 '18 at 22:44
• This is just sorta embarrassing to watch at this point. And it's already back to 2 undelete votes, so I expect another full cycle in the next day. – user296602 Nov 27 '18 at 18:28

Undeleted, reopened

I humbly request undeletion and reopening of this question, if you see fit to do so, because

a) reasons for closing should be derived from the question itself and not from speculation about the skills of the asker.

b) the given reasons for closing are incorrect - while the question sails close to an open problem, it asks a different but related question - it asks if the open problem (which relates to a series of polynomials) can be extended to its limit point.

c) the time from entering the reopen queue to deletion was less than two hours, denying any who might have been interested in its reopening the opportunity to declare the same.

d) moreover, I think others will find the question and any prospective answers of interest and value.

• The time from entering the reopen queue to deletion may have been short, but the question had been on hold for five days already. As for the close reasons, I'll note that 2 of the close voters did not use "not math". I think that personnally I would have probably voted to close as unclear what you're asking, because on a first reading I honestly had no idea what you were talking about. – Arnaud D. Dec 1 '18 at 12:43
• @ArnaudD. Yes, but the reopen request followed an edit which increased focus on the actual question and removed the motivation for it, when I believe the question's motivation was almost certainly the cause for the down votes and closure in the first place, rather than the question itself which stands alone. – samerivertwice Dec 1 '18 at 12:47
• By the way, I think the most recent edit on your question (post-deletion) already makes the question more interesting. It only consists of adding a Wikipedia link, but that link already explains some of the context better than your question (for example, I hadn't realized that you were talking about polynomial bijections $\mathbb{N}^k \to\mathbb{N}$, but maybe that's just me). – Arnaud D. Dec 1 '18 at 12:57
• For what it's worth, the reopen review was completed before the deletion, as one can see here. – Arnaud D. Dec 1 '18 at 13:15
• @ArnaudD. good point, although predominantly the same users. Is there a better review link that shows timings etc.? I thought I saw one before but can never re-find it. – samerivertwice Dec 1 '18 at 13:39
• There's the timeline, but I don't know if it is as detailed as you'd want. (By the way, there's another question about how to find it). – Arnaud D. Dec 1 '18 at 13:44
• Setting aside all other issues, there are some obvious (and, I think, easily correctible) errors in your question's key equation, stating the F-P conjecture: the right hand side has no $y$ in it, and the index of summation $n$ appears nowhere in the expression being summed. I'm pretty sure you want the summation to go from $k=1$ to $n$, not $n=1$ to $k$, with $f_n(x_1,\ldots,x_n)$ on the left hand side, not $f_k(y)$. – Barry Cipra Dec 1 '18 at 15:28
• @BarryCipra thank-you. I think I intended $y$ to be the set $\{x_1,x_2,\ldots x_k\}$ and yes, I agree I appear to have exchanged an $n$ with a $k$ but alas no edits are allowed on a deleted post so I can't correct it :( – samerivertwice Dec 1 '18 at 18:17
• @RobertFrost That's surprising. In any case, I've just done the correction. – Arnaud D. Dec 1 '18 at 18:57
• @ArnaudD. Thanks and you even got the $f_n$ I thought might get missed. – samerivertwice Dec 1 '18 at 19:00
• What do you mean by "timings"? The time of the review is there exactly. As usual, hover over the time stamp to get a resolution to the second. – quid Dec 1 '18 at 23:44
• @quid thank-you. That probably covers it although I can only see a deleted post on desktop so I'll have to check later – samerivertwice Dec 2 '18 at 4:07
• @ArnaudD. Thank-you for the edit. A reopen vote would be greatly appreciated (only if you think it appropriate). Else the deleters will reverse the undeleters! – samerivertwice Dec 3 '18 at 10:39

Can this answer (on permutation groups) be undeleted:

https://math.stackexchange.com/a/3197094/10513

It was deleted for not providing an answer to the question. However, it gives a decent hint which leads to a solution. The hint is essentially "consider odd vs. even numbers". This was made formal in the accepted answer, which used mod 2.

• I think it's a bit of a stretch from that hint to the accepted answer. The hint ought to be a comment (in my opinion). – Gerry Myerson Apr 29 at 12:50
• @GerryMyerson Hints are a grey area. But I don't think deleting them because they are "a bit of a stretch" is the right thing to do. – user1729 Apr 29 at 12:55
• It would have been better, had a moderator converted the "answer" to a comment. You could try flagging the question for moderator attention, and making that suggestion. – Gerry Myerson Apr 29 at 12:59
• I flagged it beforehand, and was told to post my request here (admittedly i didn't suggest making it into a comment) – user1729 Apr 29 at 13:19
• OK, now you know what to do. – Gerry Myerson Apr 29 at 13:22

Undeleted, Merged and then deleted

Please reopen https://math.stackexchange.com/q/3208119/290189 since OP has self-deleted his/her own post after getting an answer. The community should have been given enough time to vote.

• You can't reopen a question that isn't closed, GNU. Now it has been closed, as a duplicate, but I don't see how $x^y+y^x=(xy)^2-19$ is a duplicate of $x^y-y^x=xy^2-19$. So, I'm flagging for moderator attention. – Gerry Myerson Apr 30 at 13:47
• @GerryMyerson By the moment I posted this answer, I did voted to close this question as missing context. I did notice the difference between the two. Thanks for reminding me. – GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會 Apr 30 at 13:52
• @GerryMyerson a problem is that the original version of the question was incorrect. A third party edited it to this version, while main OP had re-asked a different version. – quid Apr 30 at 15:32
• I deleted it after the merge now. This did not work out ideally, but it's near impossible to fix. If somebody wants that version of the question on the site I recommend to ask it anew. – quid May 2 at 18:17

Please unmark the duplicate of this question. I have clearly said that my question has nothing to do with duplicate one. I am asking totally different thing and the duplicate question's answer does not help me at all. It is also an unique question which follows m previous question.

• I don't believe the relationship between the Questions is quite so simple as one "has nothing to do with" the other. Both involve intersections between two spherical caps, although you might not have visualized your problem in this way. There might still be a further problem in stating the area in terms of how you parameterized the spherical region, I grant, but it would be worth understanding the solution of the proposed duplicate to try restating the area given there in your terms. – hardmath Jun 6 at 17:11

Undeleted, closed, deleted, undeleted, redeleted

I nominate Solve the recurrence $$\sqrt {x_n} − 5 \sqrt {x _{n−1} }+ 6\sqrt {x_{n−2}} = 0$$ for undeletion because OP has self-deleted his post shortly after receiving an answer. That's rude to the answerer.

• I agree that the question should not have been deleted by the original asker, and would have voted to undelete had I seen this before the question was undeleted. That being said, it is a pretty low quality question, and would like to now nominate it for closure and (if it is not improved) eventual deletion. – Xander Henderson Nov 12 '18 at 23:26
• @XanderHenderson Agreed and updated the status of my answer. – GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會 Nov 13 '18 at 1:27
• It is inconceivable this question is undeleted. Even the answer is pretty low-quality. – YuiTo Cheng Jun 26 at 4:53
• I find that revision history really surprising : one (now removed) user voted to undelete and then close the question, OP initially self-deleted the question but 5 days later voted to undelete after the second deletion, and now you've voted to undelete and then redelete the day after. Pardon my French, but WTF? – Arnaud D. Jun 27 at 9:31

Undeleted, reopened

Please consider undeleting and reopening this post:

where OP gave his/her thoughts:

Honestly I have no idea about how to approach this problem. I tried the expansion of $$\sin x$$ on the left hand side and then expand $$\cos x$$ on the right but end up with a mess. Then again $$\cos x=(\sin x)'$$, but by converting each term on the right hand side into derivative of sine does not give any sensible identity to draw out something. Really out of ideas on this one. Is there any way to do this? Please give me some hints. Thanks for your time.

Undeleted, deleted, undeleted, reopened, closed as duplicate (mod)

Please consider undeleting this post: 2011 IMC Section A Problem 3

This is not an ongoing contest problem. The answer is known online. @Aqua's answer (with 14 net upvotes) is a useful one.

• Poorly explained answer. Had downvoted it back then. – quid Jul 6 at 19:53
• That was a really bad excuse for deletion. – Jack Jul 6 at 21:09
• Since I did not delete it, I don't need any excuse (and I doubt the delete-voters where aware of my voting back then). Please do not write comments that might suggest otherwise as not everybody can check it easily. – quid Jul 6 at 22:20

Undeleted, deleted, undeleted, deleted, undeleted, reopened

Please consider casting the final undelete vote and reopening this post:
Evaluate $$1+2-3-4+5+6-7-8+\cdots+50.$$

This question is well written and with effort. It has very well written answers, one of which gives a generalization of the problem.

Reopened, undeleted, closed

Please consider undeleting this question where I also provided an answer: Integrating $$\int_0^1\frac{x\ln (1+x)}{1+x^2}dx$$ with restricted techniques.

The OP from clearly provides background on how the integral appeared, although it was some kind of homework now it can be useful for others too.

• It's good form to disclose that one has an answer on the post oneself. – quid Aug 15 at 20:59
• Hope I don't sound rude, but I don't understand what you wrote even with translate. Did you meant: It's a good thing to mention that I posted an answer to the linked question? – Zacky Aug 15 at 21:07
• Yes. You should mention this. It makes clear that you are not a neutral third party. You have a personal interest in the undeletion. This does not disqualify you from making the proposal. But it is good form to be upfront about it. – quid Aug 15 at 21:12

Deleted, undeleted, deleted, undeleted, reopened, closed as duplicate

Please reopen Calculating the summation$$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\frac{H_{n+1}}{n(n+1)}$$ because it's not an elementary question and OP has tried checking the proposition using Wolfram Alpha.

• In my opinion it's very poor style to reignite this after month without mentioning any of the earlier activity in which you even were involved. Thus, I locked the post for now. – quid Apr 30 at 11:43
• I'm puzzled. A "content dispute" notice was lifted in March 2018. The content has not been altered since then. So it seems strange to lock it for "content dispute" now, @quid. [I guess I should mention that I was involved in earlier activity.] – Gerry Myerson Apr 30 at 13:56
• @GerryMyerson Are your really puzzled or are you just searching an argument? First, the content of the post was also not changed between the first locking and the first unlocking. Second, the lock was not lifted in the sense of somebody lifting it, it simply expired. It was not reinstated as there seemed no need back then about a year ago. Then half a year ago, there was one more round of undelete-delete but it fizzled out quickly. Now somebody wants to go back to this again, indeed without any further changes, simply picking up the del-undel again. To prevent this, I locked it. – quid Apr 30 at 14:36
• Third, it might be relevant to note that the lock was "lifted" while the post was deleted. Thus, if consistency is the concern of course I should lock it again now. I could also have it become undeleted and then personally delete it again. Last time around some where keen on locks being used. So, there you go. Of course that's not fine for you now either, presumably because it does not cater to your personal preferences. – quid Apr 30 at 14:43
• To sum up, I locked it to prevent the delete-undelete cycle being restarted. By now the question was deleted four times. Plus it is an odd situation, in that it first got siginificantly improved by a third party only for this then being undone If anything should happen likely a completely new version should be posted. This would be a reasonable thing to do if preserving content is the actual goal. Of course if playing un-del games should be the goal... thus locked. @GerryMyerson – quid Apr 30 at 14:48
• @quid, when I write that I am puzzled, please do me the courtesy of accepting that I really am puzzled. I'm puzzled not so much by the locking but by the phrase, "Content dispute", when there was no change in content. Had the locking notice said "Prevent delete/undelete cycle" I don't know that I would have made any comment. Does a moderator have the option of inserting custom-made locking notices, or is "Content dispute" the only phrase available? Also, I always assumed that when a moderator locked a question, the question stayed locked until a moderator decided it was time to unlock it.... – Gerry Myerson Apr 30 at 22:46
• ....I didn't know that locks expired of their own accord after a week. I've been here almost a decade, and I'm still learning how the place works. – Gerry Myerson Apr 30 at 22:47
• @GerryMyerson the list of reasons is fixed (we can ask for additions in principle but not spontaneously) "content dispute" is the one commonly used in this case, others are "off topic comments", "contest question", "cw answer", "historical significance". We can lock for an hour, for a day, for a week, or permanently. Usually one tries to avoid permanent locks. – quid Apr 30 at 23:58
• Probably it's worth mentioning that there already is one answer in this thread about the same question. – Martin Sleziak May 15 at 7:34
• @quid, thanks for the explanation about length of locks. It's not possible, is it, for non-moderators to see what length a moderator has chosen when that moderator locks a question? – Gerry Myerson May 20 at 4:26
• @GerryMyerson indeed I think that's not possible. – quid May 20 at 8:39

Undeleted, reopened

Please undelete and reopen this post:

How can one use the direct comparison test for $$S=\sum_{k=1}^{\infty}{\frac{1}{\sqrt{k}+10k}}$$?

Even in the very first version of the post, OP states his/her thoughts and difficulties he/she has. This post is NOT missing context. And it is NOT a duplicate of any other question.

• Because we already have many questions where divergence of a series is deduced from a comparison with the harmonic series, this is bound to be a duplicate dozens of times over. Therefore the question should also be closed as too localized (not adding anything new to the site, and only helping the asker do their homework). Missing context is the best proxy we currently have, so if reopened I will vote to reclose and redelete. – Jyrki Lahtonen Sep 30 at 4:53
• @JyrkiLahtonen Maybe I should have trie to search a bit more, but by a quick search I only found this: Calculus II: Comparison Test for Divergence $\sum\limits_{n=1}^{\infty}\frac{1}{n+\sqrt{n}}$. (All I am saying that I am unable to confirm that there are dozens of posts which are close to duplicates. Although I agree that when I saw the question, I expected that there should be many similar questions.) – Martin Sleziak Sep 30 at 8:09
• @MartinSleziak It is one of the standard series to use a comparison test with :-) Anyway, when the question is a (near-) duplicate IMO showing effort/thoughts is NOT SUFFICIENT to stop closure/deletion. The questions should have wider interest, and the context should demonstrate that. – Jyrki Lahtonen Sep 30 at 9:59
• Mathematics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people studying math at ANY level and professionals in related fields. How many questions a student asks are not supposed to be "standard"?! And is any one of the four mentioned in the first comment not standard? – Jack Sep 30 at 11:59
• @Jack Your comment about MSE being for questions at any level is a red herring---the question was not closed because of its level. The question is a standard question which occurs (in one form or another) in many elementary texts on calculus. Moreover, it is a question which already has an answer on MSE. What new, valuable information does this particular question add to MSE which isn't already on the site? – Xander Henderson Sep 30 at 20:18
• How many questions a student asks are not supposed to be "standard"?! @Jack, not very many. The same applies to StackOverflow. Which is exactly why Jeff Atwood wrote that a new asker should spend 98% of their time on StackExchange searching. Getting more and more questions does not improve the site, and is not necessary for its success any longer. On occasion it is quite the opposite. – Jyrki Lahtonen Oct 1 at 14:06

Please consider undeleting this post: Does the law of cosines contradict Pythagoras's theorem?

It has been recently mentioned by Martin Sleziak in the CRUDE chat room and a user by GENTLE.

As Henning Makholm's comment under the deleted post mentioned, "... the asker is wrong, but he's presenting his wrongness clearly in a way that makes it possible to pinpoint how he's wrong, and he's asking about what he's missing. That's exactly what asking questions is for!"

• It was closed as a duplicate. Do any of the answers contribute anything that's not in the answers at the duplicated question? (Not a rhetorical question – I'm just not interested enough to check for myself.) If there's nothing here that isn't already elsewhere, why undelete? – Gerry Myerson Nov 21 at 4:31
• @GerryMyerson The closure as a duplicate could be fine, even if the other question is really poor as content. But the deletion is really not motivated for a question with more than 8k views and many upvotes. – user Nov 21 at 14:59