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This old question recently got closed. Just some days ago, I added a new answer to it. Perhaps my action caused the closure of the question (e.g. draw close-voters' attention).

I am interested in many old questions about inequalities in MSE. I want to give nice solutions for those problems (many of them are still open). I noticed that hundreds of those questions do not meet the current quality standards. Perhaps when this question was first posted almost 8 years ago, it passes different quality standards.

My concern is that if I continue to answer hundreds of old questions in the future, my action will cause the closure of those questions. If so, I should not answer those questions? In my opinion, they are difficult and interesting problems. Due to some reasons, many authors of the questions can not return to edit the question (e.g. give attempts) to meet today's quality standards.

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    $\begingroup$ As mentioned in chat here, EOQS, answers to “low quality questions”, should be focus more on newer questions. The question probably could have been left open since it provides high quality answers, site standards were different back then, and it should not be the main focus of curation efforts. $\endgroup$
    – Тyma Gaidash
    Commented Aug 5 at 14:55
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    $\begingroup$ As you say, the proximate motivation for the closure appears to be the new answer, which bumped the question to the top of the queue---it became active, and thus became the target for curation. I would suggest that if you believe that a question is likely to be closed if it is made active, then it is a question which should not be answered. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Commented Aug 5 at 15:34
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    $\begingroup$ @XanderHenderson Thanks. Many such old problems that I will probably answer in the future are likely to be closed. I really like to study and answer many such difficult and interesting problems (hope to discuss my answers with users). According to your suggestion, I should not answer them. $\endgroup$
    – River Li
    Commented Aug 5 at 15:46
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    $\begingroup$ @ТymaGaidash I don't think that EoQS is at all relevant here. EoQS is meant to create a consequence for people who answer a large number of questions which the community deems to be low-quality---it is an attempt prevent low-quality questions from being answered in the first place. EoQS has nothing to do with other curation activities, such as closing older questions. In general, I do believe that curation activity should focus on newer posts, but "standards were different back then" is not a reason to not curate newly active posts. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Commented Aug 5 at 15:46
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    $\begingroup$ Perhaps it would be a good idea to grandfather old questions in. Standards change, no problem with that. But why lose good content just because it is attached to a post that met the old standards but not the new? I don't see how the site is improved by removing this content. $\endgroup$
    – lulu
    Commented Aug 5 at 23:09
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    $\begingroup$ @RiverLi: If it get's closed you can count on my reopening vote. Many short -albeit excellent-questions are being downvotes and closed by our community due to the this business of "no contact", "effort", "why this problem is important", and so on. Curators (including myself) should take time to read between the lines and appreciate those gems that appear as seemingly simple problems bu that are actually tricky or hard. $\endgroup$
    – Mittens
    Commented Aug 6 at 4:09
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    $\begingroup$ @mechanodroid The suitability of a question has nothing to do with its answers, and I have not suggested that it does. What I have suggested is that it is generally a waste of everyone's time to target old questions for closure (even if they may deserve it). However, when a new answer is attached to an old question, the question becomes active, and loses some of that "It's old, let it be" protection. Curation should focus on active questions---this mostly means that it should focus on new questions, but old questions can become active, too, and are subject to curation. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Commented Aug 6 at 18:42
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    $\begingroup$ @mechanodroid The point is that no one should go looking for low-quality questions in the archives of the site. The vast majority of votes should be cast organically---vote on the questions which you run into while you are organically browsing the site. If you happen across an old, low-quality question in a natural way, vote to close. This includes old, low-quality questions which are made active by new answers. Personally, I would have recommended that the original poster vote to close that question in the first place (assuming they encountered it organically)... $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Commented Aug 6 at 19:48
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    $\begingroup$ @XanderHenderson Many old questions do not meet the current quality standards and should be closed. That's no problem. However, I think the questions and the problems in the questions are different. Many years ago, (perhaps) due to the environment, the authors does not provide context, attempt which makes the questions low quality. But I think that many inequality problems in those old questions are interesting and difficult (at least) in the community (olympiad style inequalities and beyond, usually different style from research level inequalities). $\endgroup$
    – River Li
    Commented Aug 7 at 1:07
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    $\begingroup$ @XanderHenderson Adding some context and attempts will make the questions not low quality, right? The point is that the authors of many old questions can not return to edit the questions. I think that question has about 17 upvotes in 2019 which is an indication for an interesting problem. $\endgroup$
    – River Li
    Commented Aug 7 at 2:00
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    $\begingroup$ @RiverLi If you know why these questions are interesting, then why don't you write a new question, include your motivation (why the question is difficult, challenging etc.), self-answer the question, and close the old one as duplicate/ request a merge of the problems? Editing the original question with context is perhaps appropriate in rare cases, but as you can see, even copying context from comments of OP is debated. I really think having your own questions and creating duplicates/merging makes sense, but I'm thinking you have great context and it should be seen by others. $\endgroup$
    – Sarvesh Ravichandran Iyer
    Commented Aug 8 at 18:16
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    $\begingroup$ @lulu: Closing != deletion. Closed questions are automatically deleted only if specific conditions are met; see math.stackexchange.com/help/auto-deleted-questions. In particular, a closed question with a score > 0, or which has an answer with a score > 0 or accepted, is not automatically deleted. So for the question under discussion, and most other questions that are worthwhile but old-fashioned, there won't be any "content removed". The SE model recognizes that even if a question is closed, it may still have value which makes it worth retaining. $\endgroup$
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Aug 9 at 17:13
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    $\begingroup$ @lulu "...what is the point of closing it?" To prevent further answers and to signal to the community that the question does not meet the standards of the site and should not be viewed as a model for future questions. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Commented Aug 9 at 17:47
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    $\begingroup$ What's the justification for closing this particular question? I haven't seen any discussion of any specific standard that it violates or really any reason to close it at all (aside from @XanderHenderson's comment that they personally "don't care for such questions," which is a perfectly good justification for a down vote but has less than zero to do with whether it should be closed.) $\endgroup$
    – N. Virgo
    Commented Aug 13 at 12:27
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    $\begingroup$ We would have avoided several headaches over the years, if we had adopted the "no homework questions" -policy back in the day (like most of the other SE sites). Good context, bad context, no context at all - not allowed. But, no, Math.SE had to be the special snowflake with many influential users tooting "Freedom to teach", "Just answer every possible question with all the elegance we can muster" and the like. Mind you, we still would be quarrelling, but about something else entirely :-) $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Commented Aug 15 at 15:17

2 Answers 2

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Context had been provided in comments by the OP back at the time (2016) the problem was posted. In keeping with my personal practice, I've copied with minor edits that context into the body of the Question and accepted the checkmark that represents the edit as resolving the reason for closure.

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    $\begingroup$ What would you do if there were no comments under the question? $\endgroup$
    – Sarvesh Ravichandran Iyer
    Commented Aug 6 at 15:15
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    $\begingroup$ @SarveshRavichandranIyer: The Question was closed for lack of context. Without input from the OP I would not be able to supply it. Some colleagues feel that even editing context from the OP's comments is undesirable, but I'm pursuaded that it's an improvement that doesn't conflict with the OP's intentions. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Commented Aug 6 at 16:16
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    $\begingroup$ @harmath : realize comments are ethereal. They can be removed at any time (e.g., a thread gets unwildly). When a asker comments below their question, in an attempt to clarify or add context, they need to be encouraged to edit their question field to update and improve the question. The goal is to make the question asked complete. Comments ought not be considered "context". $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Aug 6 at 22:34
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    $\begingroup$ @amWhy: They should certainly be encouraged to edit the question instead. But we shouldn’t be surprised or contemptuous when relatively inexperienced users put their clarifications in comments — that would be the normal thing to do on most websites/social media, Stack Exchange is the outlier. If they’ve put good information in comments, the natural thing to do is to move it into the right place. $\endgroup$
    – Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine
    Commented Aug 7 at 9:12
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    $\begingroup$ Why is it even a requirement to provide what you've tried so far? You can just say you tried some stupid stuff and suddenly it's a valid question? I prefer the problem-statement like questions particularly if they are interesting and natural. The site has gone in a poor direction with closing questions which don't have "I tried X, Y, and Z stupid things that did nothing to solve the problem" yet leaving it open if they tried stupid X, Y, and Z and wrote about it. Just seems that by having that as a requirement you will end up with more standing low quality questions. $\endgroup$
    – Snared
    Commented Aug 10 at 7:32
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    $\begingroup$ I prefer they try X Y and Z stupid stuff on their own and don't put it on the site unless it solves the problem. $\endgroup$
    – Snared
    Commented Aug 10 at 7:32
  • $\begingroup$ @Snared There are two (see next comment for another one) reasons that I can think of, from experience (1) Effort is considered the best "honesty" certificate on this website, and assures answerers they're not "doing someone's homework" more than other forms of context do. (2) If there's a user that knows absolutely nothing about where their problem came from, then people tend to ask "what have you tried?" and get whatever context they need from the ramblings of the user itself, piecing together context from incoherence. $\endgroup$
    – Sarvesh Ravichandran Iyer
    Commented Aug 11 at 5:57
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    $\begingroup$ Another possibility is of users who come here to teach, so for every question, they're not thinking "how can this be solved?" but rather "how is the OP thinking about this and how can I correct the OP's thought process, and make them a better student?" Of course, this requires knowing what the OP wrote. $\endgroup$
    – Sarvesh Ravichandran Iyer
    Commented Aug 11 at 5:58
  • $\begingroup$ I support Hardmath's sentiment. It was my battle cry for a long while. But do keep in mind the thinking underlying this policy. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Commented Aug 13 at 3:42
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    $\begingroup$ (cont'd) To some extent that policy is mostly about new questions that an editor wants to save. At least that's how I see it. A good read, nevertheless. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Commented Aug 13 at 4:03
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I think it should be an obligation for everyone considering voting for closing a question with answers to not only consider the question but also the answers, or at least the "best" answer.

Sometimes bad questions give rise to good or even great answers. I am not saying that good answers always redeem bad questions, but they should not be ignored when deciding if voting or not.

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  • $\begingroup$ As an example, I saw a 8-year old question which is absolutely a Problem Statement Question (PSQ). However, it has 6k+ views, 90+ upvotes, 10+ answers. The accepted answer has 40+ upvotes, and 1000 bounties (two 500). $\endgroup$
    – River Li
    Commented Aug 15 at 2:19
  • $\begingroup$ @River Li Could you link to it? $\endgroup$
    – Jan Olav R
    Commented Aug 15 at 7:03
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    $\begingroup$ Perhaps some users will vote to close it. $\endgroup$
    – River Li
    Commented Aug 15 at 9:58
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    $\begingroup$ @River Li Fair point :-) $\endgroup$
    – Jan Olav R
    Commented Aug 15 at 10:22
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    $\begingroup$ @River Li Well, if you don't give us an opportunity to judge ourselves by looking at it, this is tantamount to the question being "invisible", which is probably a pity. Please share it with the community, as it seems this can only be beneficial. Even if people do vote to close it, at least the comments to the other posts here imply that it won't get deleted, so no reason to fear that it might disappear! $\endgroup$
    – Wolfgang
    Commented Aug 17 at 12:06
  • $\begingroup$ @Wolfgang It is math.stackexchange.com/questions/238245/…. $\endgroup$
    – River Li
    Commented Aug 17 at 12:59
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    $\begingroup$ FWIW, the policy was crystallized around this time. The available body of evidence overwhelmingly implied that keeping such questions around will turn the site into a homework mill, and catering for excellent answers to bad questions should not change the verdict. The points you seem to protesting against have been discussed heatedly and periodically 1, 2, 3 and others (linked to those). $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Commented Aug 21 at 3:41
  • $\begingroup$ Just wanting to make sure that you are aware of the history. The current way is not optimal. But in my opinion making allowances like this made the problem worse. That is admittedly hindsight in operation. Anyway, that is why I disagree with your suggestion. Something like that has been tried. It did not open the floodgates - more like allowed a crack in the dam, with the predictable results. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Commented Aug 21 at 3:43

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