# Strange demands for re-adding context

I'm unsure about the validity of the closure my question All integers from 1 to 73 are recorded in a sequence such that each number

"This question is perfectly clear and requires no additional context." - These are the words of the person with a reputation ~ 39000 (moved by admin to the frozen chat!)

Why my question is closed (on hold) if four out of five who voted for closing have a reputation of 4-13 times less???

Mr. Mummert wrote: "In its current form, the post is not about mathematics, but about a previous post. As such, it should be posted on the meta site, not the main site." Ok:

My answer on "put on hold as off-topic by user21820, Abcd, rtybase, Cesareo, Shailesh 9 hours ago"

1. Please explain why I have to edit the question again if a few percents of users have wished for it? Others are satisfied with the context that I have already posted. As such, the question hung for 2 months without complaints. Moreover, I saw the comment of the person who did not need any context at all. If there are more than five such people then it is natural to assume that no additional context is needed. )

2. "Some forms of context include: background and motivation, relevant definitions, source, possible strategies, your current progress, why the question is interesting or important, etc." – user21820, Abcd, rtybase, Cesareo, Shailesh

• background and motivation - dear users, you may be inattentive: "I'm a math teacher and my student brought this task. But I can't solve it without coding." Also from comments: "Тhis is the final task of one of the training test to prepare for the USE in Russia. The complexity of this task traditionally corresponds to the level of a good math Olympiad";
• relevant definitions - definitions of what exactly - numbers, dividers???; source - from comments: "If you like I can provide a link to this test (in Russian of course)";
• possible strategies - if they were known to me I would not post this question here;
• your current progress - well, I really do not understand why you need the current progress of a person who, perhaps, incorrectly solves the problem??? Would you like I just give you the answer that is listed in the source?
• why the question is interesting or important - I have already said why the question is interesting to me. If you don’t know why it’s interesting to you please pass by, that's all.
• Say, hypothetically, that I were to say that it needs more context. Would you have invalidated four people with ~70k who claim that it does? (And that's without considering my status on the site as a moderator.) – Asaf Karagila Mar 7 '19 at 12:27
• Also, is this a way to request the question to be reopened? There are more appropriate ways to do so (you've edited, which put the question into a review queue where it could get reopened; if that didn't help, you can find the "requests to reopen" thread here on the meta site and post there). Is it a rant? In that case, rants do not belong on meta. Somewhat ironically, I find that this meta question could do with a bit more context. – Asaf Karagila Mar 7 '19 at 12:28
• Wow. 300000... No of course. After all, you all five would have a reputation more than the person who supported me. I would not have my argument. ) But this is not important. The main thing - the validity of the requirements of a person, no matter what his reputation. – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 12:53
• So, if the validity is about the request, why does it matter that four out of five closers had so much less reputation? – Asaf Karagila Mar 7 '19 at 12:53
• Excuse me, I wanted to write - it is not SO important. It is more likely that a person with a great reputation will read the question and comments to him more carefully. And his voice is more meaningful. Otherwise, why is reputation calculated at all? – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 13:10
• When you posted the question, there was a link to instructions about providing context. Can you explain why, as a new user to the site, your opinion about what to include in your post would be more important than the instructions that were provided? – Carl Mummert Mar 7 '19 at 13:19
• The concrete issue with the original content of the post, "I'm a math teacher and my student brought this task. But I can't solve it without coding. ((" is that this could apply to any problem at all. It doesn't provide context to this problem because of its lack of any mathematical content. I agree with some other suggestions about how to include context: include the specific source of the problem. Try a smaller example and show what happens with it. Try to solve a related question first, such as "which numbers can be last" or the more trivial question "which numbers can be second". – Carl Mummert Mar 7 '19 at 13:26
• @Carl Mummer "When you posted the question, there was a link to instructions about providing context. " But I have already fulfilled the previous requirements for adding context. In this form, the question hung for 2 months! Everyone was satisfied. In six months, five young students will come, they will see my question, they will want some more context. And will I have to change it again ??? – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 13:29
• Finally, there is an aspect of the meta site that is different than the main site - on the meta site, votes only indicate agreement or disagreement with the general argument of the post - votes on the meta site do not have any meaning about the mathematics of a problem. – Carl Mummert Mar 7 '19 at 13:29
• @JoeBradley: "In six months, five young students will come, they will see my question, they will want some more context. And will I have to change it again ??? " I don't see why that is a problem - it is not so hard to edit a post. However, if the post had thorough context the chance five people would ask for more is pretty low. If the post remained for two months it could be just because not enough people had looked at it - problems disappear from the main page quickly, and so quality control is an ongoing problem for this site. Even now your post has only been viewed 218 times. – Carl Mummert Mar 7 '19 at 13:31
• Question posted 30 Dec 2018; closed, 20 minutes later; reopened within an hour; deleted 2 Feb 2019; undeleted 2 days ago; closed 21 hours ago; reopened 9 hours ago; currently 3 votes to close. – Gerry Myerson Mar 7 '19 at 22:45
• @Gerry Myerson And what does not suit those who voted this time? – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 22:51
• Underneath each open question on main there are the words, $$\rm share\ cite\ edit\ close\ flag$$ If there have been votes to close, Joe, then the number of votes appears in parentheses after the word "close". Maybe these things are only shown to those who have accumulated a certain number of points. – Gerry Myerson Mar 8 '19 at 22:39
• @JoeBradley For your own questions you need 250 reputation link to see close votes and 3.000 for any question. So Gerry along with all the people with 3.000 or more reputation see additional close (or in this case reopen) with number of close votes(reopen votes). – kingW3 Mar 8 '19 at 22:48
• BTW the question has been reopened: revisions, timeline. (Of course, if somebody objects to closure on the grounds that it was decision only by five users, the same objection could be raised against the reopening.) – Martin Sleziak Mar 21 '19 at 9:12

As Asaf alludes to in his comments, the question is closed because enough users have voted to close it. It's rather like trial-by-jury: if a sufficient number of people are convinced, a verdict is pronounced. You might not like that, but it is a way of approaching things that at least attempts to be democratic. Also, similarly to trial-by-jury, you can appeal the closure -- Asaf has pointed out some ways to do so, and you can raise it in the CRUDE (Close, Re-open, Undelete, Delete and Edit) chatroom (link: https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2165/crude ) which is explicitly for discussing these kinds of issues.

Picking a user with high-rep who liked your question unfortunately does not lend weight to your argument. In many eyes it weakens it because rather than provide concrete evidence of the value of your question you're choosing to lean on someone else's opinion.

My opinion: you have a good question but in the opinion of voters you've not expressed it well enough. Since you're asking for help it's down to you to improve that expression: complaining isn't going to change the opinion of someone who thinks you're not making enough effort. I'm sorry.

• I agree it's somewhat baffling why the OP didn't include the precise source of the question if the source was known at the time. – Carl Mummert Mar 7 '19 at 13:22
• @Carl Mummert Nobody asked me. Please: school2-lgov.ru/images/DOCS/… Page 11, the last task. – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 13:38
• @JoeBradley: the "Provide context" instructions include "You can tell us where the question comes from." and "Give full references." – Carl Mummert Mar 7 '19 at 13:46
• @JoeBradley I think you need to tell us now what you want to achieve from this question. It feels like you want your question on the main site re-opened -- do you feel you have enough information now to edit it into a form that will satisfy voters, and attract answerers? – postmortes Mar 7 '19 at 13:47
• @Carl Mummert "You can tell us where the question comes from." CAN? Not SHOULD? No problem: You asked - I gave. – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 13:57
• @JoeBradley You are being pedantic, and seem to be missing the point. You must provide good context for your question if you want to convince the community that it should remain on the side. One way (among many) that you can provide such context is to give a source for the problem. This is spelled out in the guidelines. There is no requirement for a source, as there are other ways of providing good context, but it was suggested to you (via the guidelines) that you can provide context by providing a source. – Xander Henderson Mar 7 '19 at 16:22
• @Xander Henderson "You must provide good context for your question if you want to convince the community that it should remain on the side". Unfortunately, my question is not closed by the community, but by its five users. But at least three others liked my question and they supported me. Why aren't they a community? – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 17:48
• @postmortes I had no purpose to give weight. I want to say that the estimates are subjective. There were three commentators who supported me. This means that there may be a lot of them. ) It seemed to me that the portal was created to communicate and help each other and not to satisfy the desires of some users. And these desires are vague - I just get a link to the help center. Ok, I have sorted out above what is written there, and I think that the requirements of the five voters are groundless. Why did they not make specific comments (like you, for example), but hide behind a common quote? – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 18:01
• @postmortes "I think you need to tell us now what you want to achieve from this question". You're right. Mr. Lahtonen has already edited that question. I think that is enough. – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 18:08
• @JoeBradley I made specific comments because I wrote an answer here where there is a text-entry box. If you earn enough rep to start reviewing you'll find that the review options usually do not permit text-entry -- you choose from radio buttons that put up the 'common answer' (there's an exception for things that are considered to be harmful and need moderator attention). There are discussions on here in meta about those messages -- enough, too few, exact wording, etc. Like just about everything on these sites, if you want a change there is a way to do it, but you'll need to persuade folk – postmortes Mar 7 '19 at 18:19
• @JoeBradley I like Jyrki's edit, and I've upvoted the question. Please don't forget that you can answer your own question as well, so if you do have interesting ideas and ways to solve it, even programmatically, you can put them with the question as an answer that might inspire better answers from others. – postmortes Mar 7 '19 at 18:23
• @postmortes Of course. Thanks. ) – Joe Bradley Mar 7 '19 at 18:45