# Where is the fine line between using and misusing?

Disclaimer: I am fully aware that we have a no-names policy on the meta. However due to recent events I am sorry to be the one to break it on such a delicate topic. Willie tried to do it without resorting to names, and it seems to have failed. In this thread I wish to discuss the behavior of a particular user, which is unprecedented on this site. I will do my best to avoid a judgmental tone, and to remain impartial throughout the post.

I am asking the community members to read carefully, point out mistakes on my retelling, and suggest whether or not this behavior should be acceptable or not, and why.

$\qquad$- Asaf.

In the past two weeks the user Makoto Kato has posted over ten questions to this site. The majority of these questions were about whether or not a particular property for particular type of objects would hold without the aid of the axiom of choice.

He would go and answer most of his questions on his own, posting incomplete answers with the intention of completing them on a later occasion. Despite the repeated requests (see 1, 2, 3) that he first sit to write his answer [almost] completely and then post it, Makoto has dismissed this as a matter of personal taste and insisted that he was not misusing the site.

One important link is Makoto's answer here which was edited no less than 81(!) times, of those only two edits were made by other users. Surely a record throughout the SE network. This was not his only excessive edit, and many of his posts were edited well into the CW-hammer (e.g. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). There is no arguing about the amount of effort and energy Makoto is putting into these posts, it is clearly a great amount.

Upon my suggestion that he opens a mathematical blog to post the complete proofs there and only put a summary alongside the link, the user replied that he once did that and only got downvoted (cf. 9). Ironically, by continuing his behavior he gets downvoted regardless to the content of his posts (I will address this issue later).

In another comment he said that the many questions he posts and answers are "I'm trying to solve this problem:math.stackexchange.com/questions/155392/... I think I solved it. But it's long. So I split it to several questions." (quoted from 10 and 11) and upon my suggestion to write a paper and post it on arXiv (see 12) his reply was that it is not worth the trouble (cf. 13).

Later on, however, in this question the following appears:

Motivation This question came from my efforts to solve this problem presented by Andre Weil in 1951.

Can we prove the following theorem without Axiom of Choice? If the answer is affirmative, by using this, we can get many examples of Dedekind domains without using Axiom of Choice. This is a related question.

In my eyes solving a problem presented by Weil is definitely a good enough topic to post on arXiv. That is a subjective opinion though, and I suppose it remains as such.

So it seems that this user decided to tackle a big problem, which is definitely encouraged, but also decided to use this website as his personal scratchpad for writing his proofs, posting partial answers and completing them later on. The result is scary: answers so long that it is impractical to read them all from a screen of a website, especially one that lacks a proper printing function (I know about the stackapp, it's worthless).

In the various links above it is visible that many of the comments calling Makoto to cease this behavior are upvoted, and the apparent number of downvotes on his various questions and answers is also an alarming sign telling us that there is a portion of the community which is very dissatisfied with this sort of behavior.

Now to address the downvoting, I agree that downvoting due to the person and not the mathematical content is a bad move. However I am also aware that it is a natural reaction of a community which cannot otherwise signal a member he is acting wrong. If a thorn is intruding the body, the immune system will react to the foreign object even at the cost of harming the body itself to some degree. Indeed it will often harm the body to signal the organism that something is wrong. In this aspect the downvotes are merely a rather violent response to Makoto's behavior and disregarding the requests of others.

I believe that this has made things worse. Today Makoto edited not one, not two, but six of his questions repeatedly (often in successive bursts, one after the other) and edited into each and every question the same content about his motivation, a question about the downvote (something which is often done in the comments) and lastly a link to MathOverflow he found interesting and related. This is well after Bill Dubuque has informed him that editing bumps the questions and take front page space which should be shared amongst other askers as well (see 14).

The latter is something I find very offensive, regardless to whether or not it is intentional. I should remark that seeing how Makoto was already informed that this is not something people appreciate on this site, it becomes an even more severe situation.

Now I ask, what do you, dear community members, think? Is there a misuse of the software? Should we accept someone editing a single post over 70 times within a few days? Should we allow someone to edit a bulk of his questions repeatedly entering the same content?

• I like how someone already downvoted this before there was enough time to actually read through the whole thing and consider. It was suggested that I post a meta thread on the topic, and since there is absolutely no way of doing that without resorting to names... I resorted to names. – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 19:40
• Asaf, it was my downvote to which you refer in your comment. Indeed I had read through your question, and although I respect you and your mathematical contributions here very much, I downvoted this question, because I disagree with the view you are advocating. Furthermore, the rude treatment of Makoto in comments to his questions is itself objectionable. Most of the questions in question are very sound, and I would urge a greater degree of tolerance. Let's all concentrate on mathematics instead of this. – JDH Jul 15 '12 at 19:55
• Joel, thank you very much for coming forth and explaining. I agree that the rudeness in the comments is as objectionable, even more, than downvotes based on a personal reason. However I did try to be nice, most of the reaction I got was a cold and repeated "this is solely your opinion. I don't care.", I should probably add that I had a brush with Makoto before. We had argued over a comment thread in which he practically wanted me (or someone else) to reprove a book of analysis for him. I also found his reactions equally rude when he began assuming I am "opposed to these questions". (cont) – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 20:00
• @Makoto: Not once I had remarked that this (answering your own question) is unacceptable. You keep ignoring my point. It is unreasonable to use the site as a scratchpad and de facto post a paper on the site. – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 20:22
• @Makoto: I have opened a meta thread. You are commenting in it. Please stop repeating this mantra. I also repeatedly said that I think it is acceptable to answer you own questions. – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 20:35
• @MakotoKato, answering your own question is fine. Cutting beef with a knife is fine. That doesn't mean you can run around stabbing cows. It's the fact that you violate (or nearly violate) other policies and guidelines while doing so that's the real problem. – Robert Mastragostino Jul 15 '12 at 21:35
• @MakotoKato Your questions are all quite clearly written for you, and not for us. Even when you answer your own questions, the intent should be to contribute to the knowledge of others, but what you're writing is very opaque and not especially expository. It's pretty arguably "not reasonably scoped" if it has to be split across several questions with very long answers. If you're doing research then that's fantastic, but it doesn't fit with the purposes of this particular site. Your intent doesn't seem to be community-based, so it's odd that you'd use a community-based site for such things. – Robert Mastragostino Jul 15 '12 at 22:06
• See, this is why folks are discouraged from focusing on specific users rather than issues: you're tackling 4-5 different problems here, and hence the responses you're getting tend to focus on... One of them. I don't think this discussion will be terribly productive. – Shog9 Jul 15 '12 at 22:30
• @Shog: I don't know whether or not you are following the main site, but this is something that I tried to see how to tackle "globally" for a few days and I realized that such behavior was never seen on this site before, and maybe even on the SE network, and there are no "predefined" norms to adhere to. This post was really my last resort. Believe me. – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 22:34
• @MakotoKato I'm fully aware that others can understand your questions and answers better than I can. My point is that you're spreading very technical answers across several questions to serve your own goals, not the math.SE community. "Opaque" doesn't mean "not understood", it means that it's a heavily condensed final result as one may find in a paper, not an explanation that would encourage understanding. Most of the problem isn't even in the initial posting (which is perfectly understandable and definitely arguable), but your refusal to listen to the suggestions of more experienced users. – Robert Mastragostino Jul 15 '12 at 22:49
• Seriously? Never explained? Are kidding me? – Asaf Karagila Jul 16 '12 at 1:20
• @MakotoKato In a medium where the entire conversation has been written down, and you get notifications for every single reply, how can you honestly say that you "missed it"? You have access to everything we've ever said about it. If there's a specific point that needs clarification, quote it and explain what you don't understand. Since you're on a Q&A site you should understand how that works and why we say you're not cooperating. Stop being obtuse. This filibustering is blatant and childish. I'll repeat: argue maturely and make a decent case, or stop. – Robert Mastragostino Jul 16 '12 at 1:40
• FWIW: for me, the "If you think it's publicly unacceptable, please open a meta thread on it." comment on an actual, genuine, honest-to-goodness meta thread is a very telling piece of behavior. I have to wonder if the obstinacy being displayed by this user is of the willful sort, or is merely due to said user's inability to pick up on subtle (though at this point, we are being as subtle as a grenade) cues/hints to modify his behavior. – J. M. isn't a mathematician Jul 16 '12 at 2:40
• I'm sorry, but after seeing the last few comments of the user in question, I am going to have to abandon Bill's take and go back to my opinion that the user is being willfully obstinate. The user does not also seem to understand the notion of "unwritten rules", and will thus keep breaching other people's sensibilities since there is nothing written that prohibits his behavior. No country has a law explicitly stating that "you shouldn't be a jerk"; that doesn't imply you can go around being a jerk... – J. M. isn't a mathematician Jul 17 '12 at 11:13
• @AsafKaragila I think Makoto is just trolling you now. His last few comments clearly show traits of trolling - he has already been informed multiple times that his behaviour is breaching community norms. He has already been told that his behaviour of constantly crowding the front page is selfish. Makoto if you continue to dodge the issues at hand and act like that, I would not be surprised if you were to get a suspension. And by the way what I have said is not a threat because I cannot initiate it. – user5783 Jul 17 '12 at 12:14

I just spent quite a bit of time reading through all the comments in this thread and Willie's. A lot of them jump back and forth between various issues, and they have a very controversial feel to them, but it seems to me that on the important issues there's a rather broad consensus, and I want to try to distill that here.

Asking questions with the intention of contributing to the site by answering them oneself is explicitly encouraged. Editing answers to improve them is constructive. Posting partial answers to share work in progress and avoid needless duplication of efforts is OK.

However, from these three statements it doesn't follow that posting partial answers to one's own questions and then editing them a lot is welcome. The rationale for posting partial answers to other people's questions is to avoid duplication of effort – if I can answer a large part of the question, or solve an important case, or find a proof but can't fill a gap in it, or am waiting for my computer to complete a search for counterexamples overnight, I'll post rather than letting someone else do the same work over again; if I can later solve other cases or fill the gap or find a counterexample, I'll edit the answer.

When I'm answering my own question, on the other hand, I'm in control of the entire process. There's no reason to hurry; I can prepare the question and the answer at leisure and post them when I'm satisfied with them. Of course I might still spot typos after I posted, or have some new ideas later and add them, or respond to comments; the point is merely that there's no reason to post when I already know that I will probably want to edit the answer again soon. It was this very specific behaviour that was at the core of what Asaf, in my view rightly, objected to.

As was stated in the comments, editing comes at a cost, the cost of space on the default main page. Everyone should use that scarce public good responsibly. That involves trade-offs that can't be formalized in rules. Posting a partial answer that goes a long way towards answering the question is OK; posting a rudimentary sketch and then editing it several dozen times, one detail at a time, isn't; and the "fine line between using and misusing" runs somewhere in between. We can't pinpoint it in the abstract; respecting it will always involve responsible decisions; but its exact location certainly depends on whether one is answering someone else's question or one's own. Most commenters seemed to agree that in the present specific case it was crossed.

• Beautifully put, especially the last paragraph. – J. M. isn't a mathematician Jul 16 '12 at 16:10
• +1ed. Do you plan to apply for moderatorship of this site? – Did Jul 16 '12 at 18:50
• @did and to everyone who upvoted that comment: Thanks very much, I appreciate the encouragement. I hadn't seriously considered it because there are already too many demands on my time as it is, but I promise I'll think about it when it's time for the next elections :-) – joriki Jul 22 '12 at 19:02
• There's still time left. An hour or so, but still... :-) – Asaf Karagila May 13 '13 at 18:17
• @Asaf: Thanks for the reminder :-) I did seriously consider it, and I would have nominated myself if I'd had the impression that there weren't enough candidates who would do a good job. My contributions to math.SE have become more intermittent recently, and I hesitated to take on a commitment because my other commitments have been growing. I would have done it if it had seemed necessary to preserve good moderation of the site, but I don't flatter myself to think that I'm indispensible in view of the current roster of candidates :-) – joriki May 13 '13 at 23:11

My opinion is that this kind of dramatic spectacle, especially when it has a personal nature as here, is harmful to the site. This goes both for this meta question as well as the rude comments on the questions in question.

I would urge that we concentrate on mathematics. Answer the questions if you find them interesting, and ignore them if you don't.

Who cares if someone makes a lot of edits? Making dozens of edits in the space of a few hours has the same effect, in terms of keeping the question on the main page, as making one or two in the same time frame. And the quality of some of the answers we are speaking about is rather high.

I suggest simply that we be more tolerant.

Meanwhile, a note to Makoto: it seems that your style of answering is irritating some people. Why not try to accommodate that perspective, and reduce your frequency of edits?

• Joel, thank you for the answer. I again appreciate your input. I do not think this can be ignored so easily. When a would gets as deep as four downvotes on a reasonable question, simply because the OP is acting in a particular way... this is a sign that things have gone far enough to require an open discussion to excise the problem and iron the problems. If we could ignore these things, it would be great. Unfortunately, it's hard to ignore some things. It feels to me that Makoto is unreachable via words, and there are only so many of them I can use before feeling frustrated. (cont) – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 20:42
• (...) I have enough frustration from mathematical problems which insist on not being solved, and adding more from an online persona which insists on ignoring my requests when they are civilized and forces me deeper into this argument which I do not like... this makes me feel like something is fundamentally wrong here. So we end up with downvotes, meta threads, and closing votes. – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 20:44
• I agree with this answer. It may not always be easy to ignore such behavior, but it is often beneficial. No one has been forced into argument with Makoto. – Jonas Meyer Jul 15 '12 at 20:58
• @Jonas: It is in the nature of some people to argue. You can say that no one was forced to live in the street as a protest for two months. No one was forced to rebel in 1776 and 1789. No one was forced to rebel when the Catholics and the Protestants broke off. Well, in all these examples, I mean of course the very beginning... when the war broke people had to survive of course. My point is that some people have it in their nature to stand up against what they perceive as wrong. Maybe not always, maybe not in every context. But in some context... and one can't go against his own nature for long – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 21:07
• @Asaf: I find your comment to be interesting reading, but much too dramatic applied to the case at hand. This is a mathematics Q&A website, not a cultural revolution. – Jonas Meyer Jul 15 '12 at 21:09
• Then start a blog. I am certain that you got yourself a crowd of people interested in what you have to say. I just don't think that you should be using MSE to de facto publish your results. And this is essentially what you are doing right now. – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 21:32
• @Makoto: Judging by the current distribution of votes there seems to be somewhat of a disagreement over this subject. It seems that this is your opinion, and it's fine, but it seems that others disagree. As I told you before: you have damaged your image and now you have to work twice as hard to correct the damage. This is now your move and you cannot rid this by suggesting to open a meta thread, or by claiming this is a matter of opinion. This is no longer and opinion. The flood of downvotes your posts have been drowning in is a very proof of this, and the sooner you get this, the better. – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 22:14
• @Makoto: Implying? Oh no, no no. I've been telling you that flat out for a whole week now. I have a whole post up in the top of this very page which says that you are not following the social norms of this site. Whenever I told you that, your reply was that it is my opinion and you don't really want to discuss that with me... reading that, are you really surprised that people downvoted you for no mathematical reason? – Asaf Karagila Jul 15 '12 at 22:45
• I kindly request that further discussion of this topic be carried out on someone's blog. – JDH Jul 15 '12 at 22:55
• @MakotoKato Please understand that none of us are stupid. Either argue your point maturely ("I intended $x$, what about it makes you think $y$?", not "Please explain yourself yet again, I don't understand but refuse to explain my confusion properly") Or stop. – Robert Mastragostino Jul 15 '12 at 22:56
• @JDH You make some good points, but the statement "Making dozens of edits in the space of a few hours has the same effect, in terms of keeping the question on the main page, as making one or two in the same time frame" is somewhat misleading. The questions that get the most attention by far (in my experience) are those visible without scrolling. On my laptop, that's the top 3 questions, and on most computers it might be as many as the top 5. But the top 5 were all updated in the last 10min! So frequent editing makes a big difference. – Alex Becker Jul 15 '12 at 23:23
• @MakotoKato, you write «Votes should be made for a mathematical content» but that is not a correct statement: this is not a online mathematical journal we are talking about, but essentially a social site whose subject is mathematics. Votes reflect the perceived mathematical value of the content, the value of the contribution to the community and, why not, an evaluation of the behaviour of posters. It's quite imaginable that people may be at times simultaneously incredibly obnoxious and mathematically correct, and there is no reason why votes should not reflect that, if voters are so inclined – Mariano Suárez-Álvarez Jul 16 '12 at 0:01
• @Mariano I disagree. In my opinion one should strive not to downvote posts based on user behavior, since this sends very misleading messages to the community. Readers seeing such downvotes may make false inferences such as: the content is incorrect, off-topic, too elementary, too advanced, etc. Instead, problems with user behavior are better addressed via flags, meta posts, etc. – Bill Dubuque Jul 16 '12 at 0:37
• @Bill, when someone comes up with an academic jornal based on user votes, I might possibly agree with your opinion as it would apply there. Of course, it is true that people may make false inferences based on their interpreting votes incorrectly: that should be fixed by making it clear to new-comers (as soon as people stay on the site for a while it should be obvious to them...) that votes on posts are not a measure of mathematical correctness or even value, not by declring that votes mean something different than they do! People have wrongly interpreted pretty much anything, in any case... – Mariano Suárez-Álvarez Jul 16 '12 at 4:59

I think there is a wide range of acceptable behavior and I appreciate it when someone helps another user by giving an extensive and detailed answer, even if it takes 81 edits. The ability to edit posts is IMHO meant to improve the quality of posts to the readers of MSE. I do think the 81 edits served that goal and were perfectly legitimate.

I think it is not appropriate to use the edit function to make comments and use it as a means of discussing, such as has apparently happened here. I think this is not a legitimate use since it takes a scarce ressource, "attention for active posts", away from other users and there are means such as commenting that don't.

So there is a cost of making an edit and one sometimes has to judge whether the benefits outweigh the costs. If one is planning on posting a question in order to answer it oneself, it shows respect for other users to prepare the answer well enough that not many edits are necessary that take away the scarce ressource and I would encourage everyone to do so. Even if the contributions are of a very high mathematical quality, one should take into account that M.SE is open to all mathematical levels and specialized questions may be of interest to only a very small part of the communiy.

Whether it is legitimate to use M.SE as a mathematical sketchpad is a very different question and should be discussed in a different thread. I'm pretty sure that there exists no norm for this so far. But I would like to point out that the existing rationale for answering ones own questions doesn't really apply here. These are not the kind of questions people will look up at MSE.

• @MakotoKato: The usual rationale seems to be that this should be used for questions and answers useful to many users, while your problem seems to be quite specialized. I think this post on the SE blog is even more explicit. – Michael Greinecker Jul 15 '12 at 22:36
• @MakotoKato: There is nothing wrong with it, but if it is very specialized, I think it would be good if you made an effort to avoid bumping it too often with edits. Contentwise, I'm not competent to judge. But I would certainly prefer something that I'm interested in and that I'm competent in to be presented as a downloadable and printable paper. I'm not sure anyone but you is following your whole argument now. – Michael Greinecker Jul 15 '12 at 22:53
• @Asaf Our charter is to welcome all questions on mathematics, both elementary and advanced, both pure and applied, both in-fashion and out-of-fashion, etc. In short, we do not discriminate. – Bill Dubuque Jul 16 '12 at 0:28
• @Bill: There is a vast difference between asking a question, and posting a Q&A-blog via this site. I am only opposed to posting a blog and only about advanced topics. I feel that it is not in the interest of the site nor it is in the interest of the blog. – Asaf Karagila Jul 16 '12 at 0:34
• @Makoto: Please explain what do you mean by "What do you mean by posting a blog?". I figured it was rather self-explanatory. – Asaf Karagila Jul 16 '12 at 7:22
• @Bill: I disagree with you. I think that you are trying too hard to isolate and quantify things here. This is exactly what both joriki and Michael have said in their posts. For each point individually, there is no real objection (and behold how Willie's thread ended up, especially Henning's answer). However when combined the problem arises. To build on Robert's analogy, no one objects to cutting beef with a knife, and no one objects to killing cows for food. If you run around the field, stabbing cows and eating them on the spot, you are likely to end up in a padded room. – Asaf Karagila Jul 16 '12 at 17:21
• @MakotoKato Read the FAQ. – user5783 Jul 17 '12 at 12:19
• @MakotoKato: The FAQ says "Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much." I'm pretty sure it is not intended to ask for the book chapter by chapter. – Michael Greinecker Jul 17 '12 at 12:40
• @MakotoKato Do you understand the words that are being said in this thread? If you don't I can type in indonesian/french if that helps. – user5783 Jul 17 '12 at 13:22
• @MakotoKato I can scrape by in Italian if that suits you better. And no one is against blogging and publishing. In fact that's exactly what was suggested. You are the one who's against it. I wonder why you're objecting so fiercely as well. And by your logic I can paste an entire wikipedia page as an answer, so long as I ask a question first. You know full well that you can't apply written rules without thinking like that. – Robert Mastragostino Jul 17 '12 at 15:55
• @Robert: I think that Makoto is trying to suggest that blogging on the site, and publishing new results on the site is a good idea. However, Makoto, in mathematics it is valuable when you can cite results in further works. While arXiv has enough reputation in the community to be a good source for citations, math.SE (or MO) is not that reputable yet. One can cite it, but I believe that one cannot "depend" on results from this site without reproving them. If you honestly wish this result to be useful, you should seriously consider uploading it to arXiv. – Asaf Karagila Jul 17 '12 at 20:53
• @Makoto You mentioned that you'd be making your edits less frequently. However, you just made 4 minor edits to this post in a 20 minute timespan. Those edits should have been coalesced into a single edit, to be less disruptive. It is essential that you work towards composing your posts in a manner that is not disruptive towards other users. – Bill Dubuque Jul 17 '12 at 23:03
• @Makoto I created the Sandbox for drafts of long, complex answers. Please try it out and provide feedback as need be. – Bill Dubuque Jul 18 '12 at 5:23
• @Bill, +100, were it possible. Let's hope it works. – Gerry Myerson Jul 18 '12 at 5:43

Math.SE is not a personal blog, it's a community. The front page is a disaster, and meta is full of threads about this. If this one user refuses to take one of the many suggestions made by well respected community members, then he is trolling all of us.

If nothing else gets through to this one user, then we should threaten to ban him. Maybe that will get through.

• I think you'll find that he has been using the sandbox provided for getting things into shape before posting. – Gerry Myerson Jul 26 '12 at 6:34
• @MattCalhoun All the problems the OP was complaining were completely solved a week ago. In short, the thread is over. – Makoto Kato Jul 26 '12 at 8:43
• @Makoto: Huh? I was complaining on one thing, your complete lack of disregard of any unwritten rules and social conventions in this community. No, the issue has not been solved, and you still have troubles understanding that some of the guidelines cannot be quantified into cases. The fact that there are more than one meta thread directly concerning your behavior, and that the most recent one is not even a week old, should be a hint that the problem is far from over. – Asaf Karagila Jul 26 '12 at 9:05
• @Makoto: I have started a thread. You are reading and writing in it right now. Please stop suggesting people to open meta threads whenever you wish to ignore them. Instead, take the day off mathematics and browse a bit to see how the rest of the users behave, read some comments that were left, or try to analyze posting patterns. Maybe then you will understand why this thread has a single complaint written in it. – Asaf Karagila Jul 26 '12 at 10:07
• @MakotoKato, I kindly request that you stop repeating that. I find it impossible to believe that you are not trolling. – Mariano Suárez-Álvarez Jul 26 '12 at 18:45
• @MarianoSuárez-Alvarez I deleted it as you wish. – Makoto Kato Jul 26 '12 at 18:54
• @AsafKaragila Please tell me what exactly it is, the unwritten rule I'm disregarding. – Makoto Kato Jul 26 '12 at 19:00